


Take The Long Way Home

by ivorytower



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: M/M, a cavalcade of female OCs, but not that canon compliant, i've tried to make this canon compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-25
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-05-23 04:55:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6105580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorytower/pseuds/ivorytower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the discovery of Overlord aboard the Lost Light, Drift was banished by Rodimus Prime to conceal the young Prime's own part in the terrible ordeal. Now, months later, Rodimus' part has since been revealed and Ratchet has departed to find the absent mech, only to learn that he is engaging in dangerous heroics. Ratchet's goal is to convince Drift to return to the Lost Light, despite Ratchet's own fury with Rodimus for his treatment of his 'best friend'.<br/>~<br/>Rodimus seeks out Megatron, his co-captain and former Decepticon leader, for advice, wanting to know how a mech he's seen to have once had pure goals and an open Spark fell so far.<br/>~<br/>Four mechs, their pasts different and yet similar as they all, at one time or another, knew one another, desire nothing more than to return to where they belong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Roaming

**Author's Note:**

> So you think you're a Romeo  
> playing a part in a picture-show  
> Take the long way home  
> Take the long way home  
> \- Take The Long Way Home by Supertramp

The sun set over the horizon, waves lapping at the edges of a dingy, dented craft that could only barely be qualified as a boat. Sea birds cried out overhead, expressing their distaste of those whom they considered to be interlopers as they floated along a seemingly endless sea.

"You need to go home," Ratchet said, for the third time in as many minutes.  He sat on a battered crate, his fingers gently manipulating the metal of the other mech's arm, trying to smooth the dents out by hand. "I understand that Rodimus is frustrating and hot-headed, but I don't have the resources to keep fixing you. Especially if you keep picking fights with Decepticons. Who was he? A shark? What possessed you to fight a shark? He--"

"Depthcharge," Drift said at length. He was still under Ratchet's ministrations, staring out at the endless ocean as they bobbed along in their makeshift boat. "Beastformer. Enslaved underwater organics."

Ratchet made a harsh, mechanical noise. "Humans would call them mermaids. They seemed grateful enough, though I don't speak bloop."

"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," Drift reminded him. "It's the will of Primus and--"

"Well, congratulations, you broke a six day streak of not annoying me with religious nonsense." Ratchet pressed his fingers into the dent a little more firmly. "Here we go."

"I've never understood--" Drift grunted, and shifted a little. "How you can be so disbelieving of divinity when you spent so much time with Optimus, with other Primes. Even Dai Atlas remembers you."

"Optimus is a Prime, powerful but not infallible. Wise but not all-knowing. Kind but not beneficent. He takes his energon like everyone else."

"Like Rodimus," Drift observed, grunting again as Ratchet tugged at the plate. "You're mad at him."

"Furious," Ratchet admitted, and checked the weld’s integrity, then manipulated Drift’s arm. "Aren't you?"

"Of course not, why would I be?" Drift tugged his arm back, working the joint. "I told him to exile me. He needed to, to hide the truth about Overlord. I didn't enjoy having things thrown at me, but when the alternative was Rodimus confessing and ending his journey before it began, I think I made the right choice."

Ratchet fell silent, his hands still. He’d known Rodimus when he’d still been Hot Rod, a foolish Sparkling, wandering around the Well, getting into trouble. He’d known him as a young soldier, full of faith and fire. Faith in their mission, faith in the Autobots. Faith in Primes. He’d known Hot Rod when he’d rebelled against skulking like a criminal in the caves on Earth, and had taken steps, brash steps, to rectify that.

_“I know the list is fake. My name isn't on it.”_

_Rodimus’ expression, already anxious, fell as the words hit him. He had been many things: angry, afraid, insecure, bright and bragging, but at that moment, he looked uncertain._

"Didn't he tell you?” Drift asked, breaking Ratchet from his reverie. Ratchet looked up to find him frowning. “Isn't that why he sent you to find me?"

_“You've always been hard on him, but now you've gone too far.”_

_He’s off-balance, as though taken completely aback by the accusation. How often has that even been true? Magnus is hard on Drift. Not everyone trusted him when he passed from Deadlock to Drift, but Kup spoke for him. Ratchet remembers him, paint and time can’t take that away. Sometimes, when he looks at Drift, he can still see the battered figure Orion put on his medical berth._

"Rodimus didn't send me. I came to get you on my own," Ratchet said at length, and returned to his work. "Sit still, I can't work if you squirm."

"I'm _not_ squirming," Drift grumbled. “You’re fussing. So, if he didn’t tell you to find me, what did you tell him you were leaving the _Lost Light_ to do? It’s not as if you can leave them without their medic, right?”

_He’s always been terrible at saying goodbye, but this time he got it right. He said goodbye to all the people he thought he needed to say goodbye to. Magnus and Ten, First Aid. He didn’t care to say goodbye to Rodimus, or want to. Not after how he treated Drift. ‘Best friend’? Hmph._

Ratchet vented slowly as the boat rocked, and looked up when he felt Drift grasp his arm.

“Ratchet? What did you _say_?”

~ * ~

It was impossible to catch a recharge on the _Lost Light_ when it was quiet. Plenty of people had caught him drifting off during the active hours, daydreaming during meetings, slumped over his desk with one hand still gripping the piece of sharpened metal he used to guide their way to the Knights of Cybertron. He’d been lectured, even mocked, and he took it all with good grace.

 _Better that than letting people know I can’t recharge at night,_ Rodimus thought, and rounded another corridor. He wasn’t exactly quiet, but he wasn’t loud either. He didn’t race, squealing his tires and invoking Magnus’ ire. He didn’t stride or shout or boast. He just walked, and he thought.

No one would believe he _thought_. He’d always preferred action to words, and far too often, _talking_ had gotten him into more trouble than acting, and that included grand theft space-ship and being shot in the chest by Megatron.

Rodimus paused a moment, gathering more thoughts together, bright-blue optics darting towards… _Room 113._ It was always something about that number and the former leader of the Decepticons. The three questions, maybe. Angles involving the Decepticon crest. _Maybe he just likes the number_. He had no idea, maybe he’d ask. When he got up the courage to knock.

His Co-Captain always recharged at the same time. He spent more time in his room, alone, than that, but he was predictable. The incident with Tailgate had proven that. _And then he proved unpredictable by forgiving Cyclonus for his reaction, and Tailgate for his actions. Hard to imagine…_

No, it wasn’t. When he shuttered his optics he could still remember Megatron, purple, grey, and huge, standing over him in his moment of triumph before the blast that had killed him, with only the Matrix keeping him from becoming One With All. He could still remember Megatron, standing in a field of not-flowers on the Necrobot’s planet and staring up at his own statue. Still living when so many had died. Died for _him_ . Died for _what_ ? Rodimus’ own statue had held far fewer flowers, but he was young yet. He’d wondered how many had been added since he’d become Captain of the _Lost Light._

What _was_ hard to imagine was that Magnus -- or Minimus, depending on how he felt -- taking Megatron to _Visages_ for energon and long talks. What was hard was agreeing to save Megatron’s life by going back in time, chasing after Brainstorm to prevent the future from being changed. What was _hard_ was going to the door and knocking lightly, then more firmly.

[Megatron, are you awake? I need to talk to you.]

There was no reply, but Rodimus waited. He didn’t do it patiently: he ran his fingers along the ridges in the door, studying angles, counting them. One, two, three. Seven. A dozen. He scuffed a foot against the floor until the tip of his foot bumped against the door. He was in his dozenth repetition when the door opened, leaving his hand hovering near Megatron’s huge, broad chest, near the Autobrand.

“Rodimus, what is it?” Megatron grated out. Megatron, the Dark Emperor. Megatron, the Slagmaker. Megatron, responsible for millions of year of war and suffering. He stared down at Rodimus with an exasperation that bordered on pity. “It’s very late, I was recharging.”

“Yeah, everyone knows,” Rodimus replied, and placed his hand on Megatron’s chest, shoving him lightly out of the way so he could stride past him. Ravage growled from his corner, machine-rumbling at the young Prime in warning. He grinned and waved. “Hey, kitty-kitty. Finally get that mech-mouse?”

“Fuck _off_ , Autobot,” Ravage grumbled, and rose, stretching. “You’re a nuisance.”

“Hey now, it’s ‘fuck off, Rodimus Prime’,” the young mech replied, and his smile felt brittle, even to himself. “Like I said, I just want to talk… oh, are you kidding me? You don’t even have a chair?”

“I’m certain you’ve seen my room before, Rodimus,” Megatron said, and closed the door. He tapped one of the wall switches, light rising enough to allow deep shadows to pool in every corner. “Sit on the berth, we both know you’re going to. I will stand, as a proper _host_ should.”

“Thanks, Megs -- can I call you Megs?”

“ _No,_ ” Megatron grated out, and leaned against the wall.

“Great, thanks Megs.” Rodimus flopped down onto the berth and reclined, noting how the faint light caught the gold highlights on his paint to stand out. _Not bad, most of the time people only see the red._ “So, there are some things I’d like to talk to you about.”

“I’d gathered that,” Megatron replied, expression fighting for calm. Not something most people expected from the warlord. “What is it?”

“Starscream was right about you,” Rodimus said, and Megatron’s eyes narrowed. Ravage growled softly, stalking over to Megatron to sit by his feet. “I’ve read your book.”

“Remarkable, I assumed you didn’t read.” Megatron crossed his arms over his chest, frowning. “Surely this could have waited--”

“You know, Optimus doesn’t have a book,” he continued, pushing on as he so often did. “He doesn’t do a lot of writing. Speeches, now, those are an Optimus thing. Lectures, too, though Ratchet’s got him beat.” Rodimus shrugged, fighting back the ache in his Spark. Ratchet was gone, and he might never come back. “But you, no. You write.”

“Yes, I do,” Megatron said, annoyance giving way to exasperation. “If you want to come here and point out the obvious, I don’t see--”

“I saw you at Maccadam’s,” Rodimus interrupted. “In the past, back when we were preventing you from being wiped from history. Alternate universe, briefcases, Brainstorm’s an idiot. You know, you were there.”

“Yes, I do know. Very briefly, I didn’t exist at all, until Whirl intervened. Whirl, of all people.”

“Yeah, Whirl has hidden depths. You didn’t want to fight. You weren’t a barely-seething ball of rage and hate, just waiting to take down the Primes. Impactor, of all people, had to tell you that sometimes you need to back up words with deeds. Then someone threw a mech into you and you got arrested in a bar fight.”

“I do recall,” Megatron grumbled. “As you said, _I_ was there. _You_ were the interlopers.”

“You know only supervillains use the word ‘interloper’, right?” Rodimus shrugged. “So, what happened? Was it Whirl beating the slag out of you in prison? Was it something else? Was it Optimus? Did you genuinely mean all the things in your book or were you faking it? What tipped you over into being ‘the Slagmaker’.” Rodimus raised his hands, framing the words between fingers and thumbs. “Was Starscream right? Was it just bigger than you and you lost control of it?”

Megatron was silent for a long moment, before asking, “Rodimus, why are you _really_ here?”

“Eighty-nine to one hundred and one,” Rodimus replied simply. “You wanted to do something good. You did something terrible. Now you’re here. What happened to you?”

Megatron walked over to him, staring down at the young Prime. “If we’re doing this, you need to move,” he said. “Don’t hog the berth.”

Rodimus grinned at him, and drew his legs back, letting Megatron sit, resting his back against the wall again. Rodimus let his legs rest on Megatron’s lap, and the warlord growled, but didn’t otherwise object. “There’s room for robot cats too.”

Ravage snarled, but took three running steps and jumped onto the berth -- and Rodimus -- before twisting himself around to curl up on both of them.

“Where should I begin?” Megatron asked, somewhat rhetorically before answering himself. “At the beginning.”

~ * ~

Ratchet’s vehicle mode was not known for its speed. Scanned and formed with the intention of saving lives, his velocity was limited to preserve the health of those riding inside. He had the siren of an emergency vehicle, though he didn't dare use it. It was bad enough that he was brilliant white and orange-red, instead of a murkier brown, green, or blue. It was impossible for him to blend in or hide.

 _We need supplies,_ he thought as he drove through the ruined streets that had once been the Promenade of Solus, before reaching the temple plaza. In his mind, the warning that no alt-modes were to be used on the walkway sounded. In better days, a disciplinary officer would be after ruler-breakers, giving them a fine that the richest could safely afford.

 _If there were indeed ‘better days’._ Bitterness welled in his Spark. The Decepticons hadn't emerged from nowhere, and in many ways he sympathized with them. Were it not for their myriad _other_ problems, especially among their recruits, he might even have joined them. _Orion has the right of it. His intentions are better, purer. If only…_

A current of noise struck him, different from the normal creaks and squeals of low-ground Nyon: it was a pained sound, the whisper-groan of a mech in need. Possibilities flew through Ratchet’s mind even as he changed his heading to follow it.

The sound led him to one of the ruined buildings. Once, it had belonged to one of the wealthy racers. Not _quite_ as famous as Blurr, but nonetheless the quality of the construction was visible even through the destroyed walls. Ratchet transformed, and moved forward, footsteps crunching on broken transparisteel.

The moaning was louder inside the building, and Ratchet frowned, tapping his wrist to bring up a diagnostic panel. “I’m a medic,” Ratchet called out. “I’m here to help.”

[I’m over here,] came the reply back, in machine-code rather than verbal speech. [Help me…]

“I’m coming,” Ratchet promised. _I hope this isn’t a trap. I hope this isn’t how I offline, lured in by a serial killer in the middle of a war zone._

Ratchet picked his way through the ruin of expensive berths and curtains, dozens of smashed figurines of ancient Primes and their lovers, as the sound grew louder, and there was a faint rustle-scrape of metal on metal. Steeling himself, Ratchet moved into the room and towards the source.

Sitting on the floor was a mech, even brighter and more obvious than Ratchet himself. He was bright red with golden flames licking along his torso and highlighting his arms and legs. He had the finial of a racer, but while these things drew the eye, it was not the source of the mech’s pain.

His face, narrow and expressive, was stained with purple-pink energon and for a moment, Ratchet feared he’d found another syphoner, another like the many that had come through his clinic’s doors. There was energon on the young mech’s fingers as well, and smeared on his chest, and… in his lap sat a now-empty bag, capsules cracked open and emptied.

“Is that… candy?” Ratchet asked, and the mech nodded before moaning again. “Did you make yourself sick on candy?”

[It’s so _good_ ,] the young mech said. [Have you _had_ candy before?]

Ratchet immediately imagined delicate, elegant fingers, surgeon’s fingers, pressing candy to his lips, teasing and promising at once, and the smile… “Yes, but you’re not supposed to eat all of it at once.” He knelt down, drawing out a plug. “Let me take a look at you. What’s your name?”

The mech looked curiously at the plug, then at Ratchet, and hesitated a moment later before saying, [Hot Rod?]

“You aren’t certain of your name?” Ratchet asked, his voice taking on a hint of sharpness. “Do you have other memory gaps?” He plugged into the young mech as data filled his mind and he sorted through it.

[I don’t… _think_ so?] Hot Rod replied. [I don’t think there’s a lot _to_ remember. There was light, and warmth, and I really wanted to come out and race, so I did. There were people, I heard them but I didn’t see them. I turned into… oh!] The young mech grasped Ratchet’s arm. [I can turn into a car! Do you want to see?]

“Yes, of course you can,” Ratchet said absently, frowning at the readings. “You’re not a-- wait. You remember coming out of the _Well_? The Well of All-Sparks?!”

[Yes, is that… that bad?] Hot Rod asked, suddenly worried. [Am I not supposed to?]

“Primus take me, you’re a _Sparkling_ ,” Ratchet muttered. “That’s why these readings are so bizarre. Open your mouth, I want to have a look.”

Hot Rod nodded, and opened his mouth a fraction. Ratchet activated the lights in his optics and peered inside: the young mech’s oral intake had been damaged, his denta destroyed by the concentrated energon. [Is it going to be okay? My mouth really hurts…]

“I’m going to have to replace these and do a purge on your system,” Ratchet said, briskly. “I’ll show you how to ingest energon, since you likely haven’t done it properly before. You transformed before, do you think you can transform again?”

[Um, yes.] Hot Rod nodded, and Ratchet closed his mouth gently. [Definitely yes. I think it’s my favourite thing.]

“Well, we’ll see,” Ratchet said, chuckling. “Follow me.”

[Okay,] Hot Rod said, and Ratchet rose. He groaned softly, and offered a hand to Hot Rod. The young mech took it, sticky fingers and all, and stood. Despite his youth, he was slightly taller than Ratchet, which made him vent deeply. [Will there be candy?]

Ratchet thought of the ruined refineries, the destroyed buildings, the sound of energy weapons sizzling over metal. “We’ll see what we can do.”

~ * ~

 _Your purpose is solely to dig_ , they told him. _So dig. Don’t ask questions, don’t make too much noise. Just dig._

Megatron dug. Rather, he drilled, using what the All-Spark had given him to mine for the precious energon needed by all Cybertronians. He supposed, in a way, he should be grateful. He had a purpose, a task to complete. He never had to worry about what he would do for energon the next day, or the next, or still the next.

 _But I did not choose this, it was chosen for me_ , Megatron mused as he continued to work, his drill grinding so loudly he could barely hear his own thoughts. _No one asked me if I wanted to be a miner. I could have wanted to be a medic, or a musician, or even a politician. How did they know I would only ever be able to mine?_

The answer, dark and cynical, whispered to him: _because they made you to be this way._

While the All-Spark was the source of his life force, in one manner or another, that was not how he’d come to be. He had been constructed cold, as opposed to being forged in the Well’s heat and light. Drone bodies were constructed for a purpose, and the Sparks assigned to those drone bodies shared that purpose.

 _No one makes drones to rule, only to serve_. He had seen it, over and over, when he had time to spare between lengthy, gruelling shifts. The myriad forms of those he saw on the streets and in the skies were separated along certain, distinct lines, the word of the Functionist Council dictating their very destinies.

 _Does anyone really have a choice?_ Megatron wondered, and nudged his drill slightly. _What makes the Forged and the drones any different? The Functionists dictate to us all, and the Senate does nothing to stop them or curb their influence. For a race of beings that can transform, we’re all trapped. Trapped in a perpetual cycle of Ignition, pre-determined purpose, and going offline._ _It sickens the very Spark._

Anger welled deep within Megatron’s chest. Anger at the injustice, anger at the path that had taken him here. His drill squalled angrily at him, and he had to stop to reset it, lest he lose some of the bite and need to be cared for by one of the heavy-handed medics that had wound up at Nova Peak.

 _There has to be a way to make a difference,_ Megatron thought, staring down at the sharp edges of the drill, and dragged his gaze up to the point. _I’ll find a way to break the cycle._

“Drone 2293, return to work,” barked a voice in Megatron’s audial, and, gritting his denta, he complied.

~ * ~

 _I’m lost_ , he thought as he saw the same pair of signs just to his left. _I stepped out of the light and into darkness and now I’m lost._ The sign fizzled, illuminating his pale white face as he stared up at the ruined sign. _And now even that’s gone._

The area he had spent the night exploring was full of dilapidated buildings, broken windows staring blindly out over the darkened streets. There were no streetlights here, only the red, green, and blue glows of signs, promising things like engex and buymechs, and other ‘discreet services’ best left unnamed.

It all seemed so confusing.

He was learning with every step. What the sound of a muffled giggle and then metal striking metal was like. What it felt like to step through spilled energon and the whisper-sigh of a mech’s last rattling vent. The sensation of clouds of rancid smoke drifting over his protoflesh, staining it grey before it had the chance to truly be white.

Everything was dark and the lights were going out one by one.

 _Where am I supposed to go?_ he wondered, frightened now. _What am I supposed to do?!_

A cold, corrosive wind rattled through the streets, and all, save one, had evacuated the streets. Emotion rose in him, panic and anger, and he began to run. His footfalls were light as they struck the shattered, battered roads, scattering bits of refuse and scrap, pieces of metal so thin they might as well have been air. Lost and directionless, he let instinct carry him away from the lowest parts of a city that had claimed him without knowing his name, nor he its identity.

By the time he tired of running, engines burning hot and his feet nicked and scuffed by rough paved streets, he had come out of the darkness and into the light. He reached out, letting his hand rest against the dingy block of an apartment illuminated by crimson and ultramarine neon lights.

Mixed on his skin, they joined together to make a shade of purple that felt familiar and yet hauntingly distant.

“Hey,” called a voice, and he looked up. Standing across the street was a mech, green intertwined with gold, arms crossed over a narrow torso. “You in trouble, Sparkling?”

“I don’t--” He began, and cringed as his vocalizer seized up. He vented hard through his intake, chugging and coughing before continuing. “I don’t know where I am.”

“Well now, that’s a real shame,” the mech replied, smiling. “Name’s Flintheel.” The voice was different from his own, and seemed to be drawn from the smoke around him. Like smog. Like the corrosive wind that he’d escaped. “What’s yours?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know anything.”

“You know how to run,” Flintheel observed and approached him. The mech’s footfalls were light and unerring, picking their way across the street. They reached out a finger, and he was forced to look the other mech in the optics. They smiled, their lips full rather than thin, and something clicked in his mind.

 _Female frame,_ he thought. _Not male frame like myself._ “I… I needed to get out of there. It was the only way.”

“Of course it was, Sparkling,” Flintheel said, thumbing over his lips. “Nothing good comes out of the Dead End of Rodion, but sometimes, something worthwhile drifts out from the depths. You hungry? You must be, new from the Well and all. I can’t believe the Caretakers let a Forged escape them. So much for government employees, hm?”

Connections formed themselves as the other mech spoke. Sparkling was what he was. Rodion was a city, one of the great ‘plexes that supported life on… he didn’t quite have that yet, but he had a where. The Well… that was the light he’d come from before crawling through darkness. The rest was lost as alarms went off, urgently demanding his attention. “Ah… ah, what _is_ that?”

“That’d be your tanks hitting low… but come with me, Sparkling.” Flintheel smiled, and patted his cheek. “I’ll get you all taken care of.” She let his face go, but then took his hand, and purple splashed across their intertwined hands. “With my help, you’ll know exactly where it is that you need to be.”

He nodded once, and let the mech pull him along. “It’s… Drift. I want to be called Drift.” As he spoke, the designation fell into place, like a missing piece from a puzzle. It was what he was meant to be called, and that’s who he would be.

Flintheel acknowledged this with another smile, and guided him along. He let her lead him, trusting as he looked around. There were still sounds here, the sounds of people going about their business. Giggles, muffled sounds, and the squeal of two forces striking at speed. He flinched, and Flintheel chuckled.

“Sounds like they’re street racing again, it’s something of a habit out here.” She smiled, and tugged and his hand. “Say, want to go take a look? You can ingest right afterwards, but there are some things that feed the Spark, not the tank.”

“Yes,” Drift said as he felt a hunger grip him, deep in his very Spark, and it had little to do with his tanks. “I definitely want to see the racing.”

~ * ~

It was a beautiful day, the sky above the Iacon Academy of Science and Technology a brilliant hue of blue and violet, vivid white contrails cut across it by high flying Vosian jets. The Academy itself was constructed from countless forged metal and glass plates, capturing light and allowing little room for darkness or shadow.

It was almost enough to drive the students to distraction, but after three years of study, Ratchet had found that it was easy to focus on what was, rather than what could be. In this case, what could be was death.

“Spark death, to be precise,” Recoil began, and tapped a console. “As you’re all well aware, Sparks are created by the Well of All-Sparks, emerging as nearly boundless sources of energy. Regardless of what form they take, Sparks can last for millions of years, providing energy for all Cybertronian functions. Were that the end of it, there would be little need of medically trained individuals such as myself, and some day, all of you.”

Before Ratchet’s optics, the image of a Spark whirling with light grew large and he could not look away. It was warm like a sun and bright like a distant star. It felt familiar, and it was only a reproduction of that which was within him, within _all_ of them.

“Despite what some may believe, Sparks do not exist in perpetuity. Over time, the energy emitted by a Spark is lost in several ways. Most Cybertronians are injured at some point in time or another. While the materials to repair injuries can come from outside sources, it takes a Spark’s energy to properly utilize those materials to complete the repair. Our self-repair protocols are also powered by a Spark’s energy, causing it to age. Spark energy, as it becomes weaker, causes lessened function, such as temporary or permanent paralysis, changes to mood and attitude towards the more morbid or fatalistic, and can lead to cybercrosis, a degenerative disorder that has no known cure. Paralysis and the shutdown of basic functions are all signs of imminent Spark death.

“Further, while we are immune to diseases such that organics would consider them, we fall prey to other illnesses, such as rust onset, brittleness of internal tubing, damage to intakes and arrays -- don’t laugh, you’re medics, not untouched Sparklings -- and other, as yet discovered problems. These are only relatively natural causes of decay and death. It is entirely possible for you to have patients that were victims of extreme violence. The galaxy is not a safe place, and we face external threats by various organic life forms, such as the Black Block Consortia, who hunt us as though we are not sentient beings, and the Galactic Council, with whom we remain on somewhat icy terms.

“However, it is not only far-reaching threats which can cause loss of life. There are internal threats as well. As medics, you will be expected to treat and preserve any who cross your path, not only the rich and high caste. Violence is a way of life for all stratas of Cybertronians, from the worker-castes and the drones to the nobility. Some cases may be accidents, or cases to call in the intervention of a psychological professional, while others may be deliberate acts of cruelty. You must be prepared to preserve Sparks, no matter the caste of the patient, nor the reason for their imminent death.

“Finally, we address death directly. There are times that, no matter how much you try, you will lose a patient. There may be times when you are forced to make choices about who you should be working on and who must be left, perhaps to others, perhaps to no one. These choices should be made based on educated and swift evaluations of all of the patients involved and the skill of the medics present. Losing patients is never easy. Many medics can be as grief-stricken as those who lose a close friend or cojunx, and then be required to continue working with no time to rest or come to terms with said death. It is crucial, therefore, that all medics know how to speak to psychologists for grief counselling.

“To that end, I have invited Doctor Rung here to speak with all of you over the course of this module, to properly demonstrate how the counselling process works. Please submit your student IDs to him so he can make arrangements for your sessions.”

_No._

Hours later, Ratchet stared down at the null-drone, tired but elated. Null-drones were constructs without Sparks, but the rest of their forms functioned fully, which meant they could be inflicted with horrific wounds without fear or ethical concerns. Losing a null-drone meant replacing it and moving on. Losing a Cybertronian meant…

 _No._ _I didn’t lose this one. Operation was successful, Spark readings will stabilize after energon transfusion. I won. I beat Mortilus._

Ratchet held his hands up, cupping them carefully to avoid dripping energon, and tapped a button on the floor with one foot. Immediately, the surgery module closed up, gathering up the patient for evaluation. Ratchet made his way to the washrack to cleanse his hands, and other purple-hued spatters he’d hardly noticed, lost in the moment.

 _I think I can do better next time,_ Ratchet thought as the steamburst hit him, water washing away vital fluids and leaving only a pair of strong, Forged hands. _I think I can be faster--_

A ping struck his communication systems, and Ratchet frowned. Activating his comm, he answered, [Yes, Professor Recoil?]

[Student Ratchet, I need to speak to you immediately. Come to my office.]

[Yes, Professor,] Ratchet said, and after a few moments, turned off the washrack and proceeded to the air dryer. It was a rebellious streak that led him to take longer than he needed to, to be certain that every drop of water had been blown away. Finally, he began the long trip to his teacher’s office.

“You’re in trouble,” Pharma noted, passing by him in the hallway. “Recoil looked fragged off. What did you do?”

“I am a criminal of the highest order, send me to Garrus-9,” Ratchet replied, rolling his optics. “I don’t know what it is I’ve supposedly done. I’m sure I’ll find out.”

Pharma smirked, and shook his head. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll fall in with the wrong crowd.” He waved one blue hand and sauntered off, leaving Ratchet to continue on towards the teacher-medic’s office.

The office itself was not large, and data-pads were carefully shelved on racks that went from floor to ceiling. Behind the professor’s desk were the various accolades they’d achieved over time. Teaching certificate, recognition of significant accomplishments. It was, in many ways, a wonder to behold.

“Student Ratchet,” Recoil said, folding her hands on her desk. She was a tall, slender mech, brilliant white with red stripes. Her rescue vehicle mode was that of a two-wheeler, rather than Ratchet’s solid, more standard four wheel build or Pharma’s sleek jet mode. Her optics had wide, round lenses, which gave the impression of optical enhancements. She pushed at them now as she scrutinized him. “I believe I made my instructions during today’s lecture clear. I told you, and all of the others, to submit your IDs to Doctor Rung so that he could discuss grief counselling with you. In another, more careless student I would believe this to be mere forgetfulness, but I’ve never known you to be anything other than diligent and attentive, so why did you fail to comply?”

“I don’t need it,” Ratchet said, and there was a sharp noise. He turned to see Recoil’s white and yellow assistant drone, Fidget, picking up a stack of data-pads. He frowned and returned his attention to the teacher-medic to see Recoil glaring at him.

“Why is it you feel somehow _exempt_ from this mandatory training, Student Ratchet?” she asked, and her tone seemed to demand, _why shouldn’t I kick your aft back to first year’s medic training to start over?_

“Because I’m never going to lose a patient,” Ratchet said firmly. “I’m never going to need that training because there’s no reason I’ll ever need to say goodbye.”


	2. Scenery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I meant to follow a length pattern for each portion of the story. I failed, horribly. More flashbacks in the next chapter, in the same order as before. Meanwhile enjoy what's here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> But there are times that you feel you're part of the scenery  
> all the greenery is comin' down, boy  
> And then your wife seems to think you're part of the  
> furniture oh, it's peculiar, she used to be so nice.  
> \- Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp

“Heave… ho!” Drift called as he boosted Ratchet onto the rusting, fragile boat. The older mech groaned as he wound up face-first amongst the refuse, and then clung to the deck as Drift heaved himself up alongside him.

“I’m going to have salt where my Spark doesn’t shine,” Ratchet muttered darkly, opening a panel in his arm and pouring water back into the endless ocean.

“I thought that was already the case,” Drift murmured, and then waved to the mech at the head of the boat. “Thank you! Our own boat sank an hour ago and we’ve been swimming ever since.”

“Not to worry,” said the craft’s pilot, a cheery pink and yellow mech. “I’m Lifeboat, and this is Calamity.” She indicated the blue and orange mech who rolled her optics. “I see her good luck is spreading.”

“My name is  _ Charity,  _ not  _ Calamity _ ,” the other mech replied as Drift helped Ratchet to sit upright. “You know, like the virtue. My  _ darling _ cojunx likes to tell people that my name is Calamity because she thinks I’m unlucky.”

“I’m not wrong,” Lifeboat said cheerfully. “I try to limit her influence by doing the Oceania circuit with just the two of us, so when she sinks the boat--”

“That hardly  _ ever _ happens!” Calamity protested.

“--well, I mean, I can rescue her.” Lifeboat indicated her blocky arms and legs. “I’m lighter than I look.”

“I have to ask, why does this thing look like it’s scarcely better than scrap itself?” Ratchet tapped the boat lightly. “Does scavenging not pay well?”

Calamity and Lifeboat exchanged looks. “The costs of living away from Cybertron or the colonies are very high,” Calamity said slowly. “The import price of energon alone is absurd, so what we pick up, here or on other worlds, breaks us just about even.”

“We can’t really afford to get something better suited to dealing with ocean worlds,” Lifeboat added. “Sealant costs shanix we don’t have.”

Drift straightened, and Ratchet hit him. “No.”

“But--” the younger mech protested.

“No.”

“I could--”

“I said,  _ no, _ ” Ratchet grated out. “It’s bad enough that every new act of heroism gets you dented and damaged and now you want to go  _ swimming _ again?”

“Depthcharge has been here for years, and I doubt he’s been paying import tax,” Drift argued. “That means he has to have a portable refinery, something small. Knowing him, it’s underwater. If we could find it--”

“What is this  _ we? _ ” Ratchet groused. “Didn’t I say no more heroics?”

“You said that you wanted to bring me back to the  _ Lost Light, _ ” Drift countered. “It seems to me that if you want to do that, you have to make sure I’m actually able to  _ go _ back, which I can’t do if I’m damaged and leaking at the bottom of the ocean. Right?”

Ratchet stared at him, angry and proud at the same time. “That’s positively underhanded of you, how dare--”

Their audience began to clap enthusiastically, and the pair of them looked towards the female-frame mechs. “Ten out of ten,” Lifeboat proclaimed. “Would dredge out of the ocean again.”

“Don’t encourage him,” Ratchet grumbled, and glared at Drift. “This is your fault.”

“Of course it is,” Drift replied cheerfully. “But you’ll still come with me.”

Ratchet muttered darkly to himself, and Calamity raised her hand. “Question.”

“Yes?” Drift asked as he moved to the side of the boat, peering down into the water.

“You’re saying you have a line on an essentially free portable energon refinery, and you’re just going to  _ give _ it to us, no charge?”

“Yes, of course,” Drift said. “It’s the right thing to do, and as you said, charity  _ is _ a virtue, even if it’s not one people have extolled for a long time.”

“Yeah…” Calamity said. “If that’s the case… can we at least give you a ride?”

Drift smiled. “Of course, we’d appreciate it. Wouldn’t we, Ratchet?” When Ratchet’s reply was nothing more than incoherent grumbles, Drift kicked him.

“We would, yes,” Ratchet said. “Though I do have a question for you in return. If you’re importing energon from Cybertronian sources, then you must have heard the news, correct? That the war is over, that the Decepticons are effectively leaderless.”

Lifeboat and Calmity looked at each other again, wary. “Yes, we know that. Why do you ask?”

“Why live apart from everyone?” Ratchet asked, watching their expressions curiously. “Why not go back?”

“We can see you’re an Autobot,” Lifeboat began, fussing with the ship’s controls as they skimmed across the cerulean waves. “So you’ve been a part of the war, and I’m sure  _ you _ think it’s over.”

“I’ve been a little more out of the loop,” Drift noted, “but I do know there are plenty of Decepticons who are making trouble, either on Cybertron or elsewhere, though there are others who are happy to be out of it.”

“It’s Autobots too, and even some of the neutrals,” Calamity said. “We’ve heard the stories, that the original planetary leader was killed, about the madness in the Rust Wastes, about inhibitor chips and Iacon only barely having power. We see other Cybertronians, sometimes. Those that didn’t heed the call. We talk. I don’t know what the Autobots or the Decepticons count as healing a planet, but it’s still bleeding and raw. It’s not dead, maybe, but all the Prime did was reset the game board. What reason do we have to go back? Yes, our boat is scrap. Yes, things are hard, but it’s peaceful out here. I can spend time with my cojunx and not have to worry that someone’s going to blow her up, or that I’m going to get caught in the crossfire of yet another pointless conflict. The war might have ended, but it’s not what any sane person would call  _ peace. _ ”

“The Autobots,” Drift said at length, “are as bad as the Decepticons when they started, and the Decepticons have fallen so far from what we were promised. Equality for all. Freedom from the oppression of the Primes. It’s hard to convince anyone to go back to Cybertron when I wouldn’t want to do it myself.”

Ratchet’s face fell, feeling sad and tired at once. “Drift…”

“That doesn’t mean there’s no hope,” he continued, ignoring the older mech. “That doesn’t mean there can’t be peace. We were always taught that nothing can be given, only taken. We can take peace back. We can take hope back, by working every day for it. A fight that doesn’t always have to involve guns or swords or fists or spilled energon, but it does mean working hard. It does mean that you have to accept the fact that more people dying tomorrow won’t mean fewer people died yesterday.” Drift fingered at the hilt of one of his swords. “Killing people doesn’t bring back the dead.”

Ratchet reached out, putting a hand on Drift’s shoulder, and for a moment, their fields mingled, and he could feel what Drift felt: guilt, anger, longing. Ratchet squeezed lightly, and released him. “Come on, you aft. Enough speeches. Let’s go swimming.”

~ * ~

It was shipboard night-cycle again, and Rodimus roamed. He knew where all the quiet parts of the ship were. The oil reservoir, good for dates.  _ Visages, _ which still ran despite the fact that Mirage had left with First Aid and several others to convey his visions to Cybertron. The Medbay, which would have Cyclonus and Velocity, the former sitting at Tailgate’s side, holding the minibot’s hand and praying to Primus for Tailgate’s systems to activate, and the latter, reviewing the medical records of the patients and muttering to herself about the strange beeping that was coming from  _ somewhere _ among the medical supplies.

Even on a ship as large, and as occupied, as the  _ Lost Light, _ there were quiet places to be had if you wanted them. Rodimus avoided them whenever he could, and instead sought out one of the brightest and loudest places he could find: Swerve’s. Despite -- or perhaps,  _ because _ \-- of the various conflicts that had occurred here, Swerve’s Bar remained extremely popular. The jukebox Swerve had mysteriously acquired never seemed to run low on music, and the shanix costs helped ‘maintain’ it, and something about the RIAA which Rodimus still didn’t quite understand. The engex of varying degrees of legality and potency flowed freely, with only minor ribbing in Brainstorm’s general direction.

“Ten?” asked the ex-legislator-current-doorman queried, and Rodimus smiled at him winningly.

“Sorry, buddy, I can’t surrender my most dangerous weapons, because my stunning good looks and perfectly forged aft can’t be given away.”

Ten stared at him, confused, and then waved him through. Rodimus strolled inside, and the volume increased from a dull roar to a full chorus of voices. Nautica, Skids, and Brainstorm sat in one corner, with the engineer gesturing as she told a story that, from her companions’ expressions, seemed as enthralling as it was wild.

Rodimus smiled to himself.  _ Brainstorm screwed up, but he’s still a part of the crew. Skids has saved us more than once, and Nautica fits right in. It looks like they’re all having fun, too. _ A few tables over, Rewind and Chromedome were deep in a discussion, heads bent together and fingers intertwined. Rodimus’ smile took on a pained aspect.  _ They’re lucky they found each other again, but Rewind should never have died. No one should have. _

His gaze slid away from them and towards the bar, where Swerve was grinning, talking a mile a minute. Rodimus focused on him, pushing past the surface to gaze into his very Spark. The metallurgist was happy, genuinely happy, instead of the mask he’d kept up for so long it had literally made him sick. Swerve had more friends than he believed, and Rodimus had ordered the whole crew to find him when he’d been lost inside his own fantasy world. Now, Swerve was a part of something, and it fit into the missing pieces in his own life.

Rodimus envied him in a way. Swerve had found his missing pieces, and Rodimus’ had doubled in size and potency. Swerve was talking to Whirl -- maybe  _ arguing _ was a better term -- and complaining good-naturedly about Magnus’ latest proclamation.

He’d started out not knowing who many of the mechs that had signed up with him had been, and that had been a mistake. When some of them had died. When some of them had been plants. When some of them had decided they didn’t trust him to lead them across the stars.  _ Never again. _

Rodimus made his way towards the bar, greeting people with slaps and grins and smiles, and they welcomed him in return. Bellying up to the bar, he held up two fingers, and Swerve slid him two cubes of high-grade, ‘on the house’. Rodimus took both and drank deeply from one, letting the high-grade burn down his intake and sighed.

_ It’s probably against some kind of rule, but I love it when it feels like I can breathe fire. _ Rodimus drank again, leaving the empty cube on an occupied table -- Vortex made a face, and Vector giggled -- and kept the other in reserve until he found a table in one corner of the bar so he could sit, stretching out comfortably to occupy three chairs.

He’d waste the second cube when he went into recharge and spilled it over himself and the floor, but at least people would assume he was an easy and sloppy drunk, and nothing more.  _ Anything is better than the truth, _ he thought, and offlined his optics, letting himself drift into recharge.

The music and laughter seeped into his unconscious mind, filling it with light and colour. His fields relaxed, and he smiled. Rewind’s voice rose out of the crowd, and he flinched.

_ "I'm angry because I failed the crew." _

_ "Or maybe... maybe what's  _ really _ making you angry is the fact that you didn't defeat Overlord yourself. Fortress Maximus and Chromedome and Rewind—dear Rewind— _ they _ got him off the ship.  _ They _ saved everyone; not you. And you hate it, and you hate that you hate it." _

_ "I think you'd better leave now." _

Rung had left, believing he’d won. Believing he had hit on a deep-seated belief that had shaken Rodimus’ beliefs to the very core.  _ I wonder if he’s realized that he’s wrong, after all that’s happened. _

It wasn’t that he wanted to be the hero. He liked attention, of that there was no question, and he liked being thought of as heroic, but that wasn’t why he’d been upset.  _ It’s my fault. It’s my fault Rewind died. My fault Chromedome was picking at Overlord’s brain. My fault Fort Max had to face his worst fears, the monster that  _ tortured _ him. It was my responsibility to keep my crew safe, and unpredictable engines and not checking under the seats for Sparkeaters are one thing… but I could have prevented this and I didn’t. It was my fault and the only person who really understood was banished by my command. _

Guilt twisted inside Rodimus’ abdomen, mixing with the high-grade. Around him, some of the happier voices were fading away, and louder, angrier voices took centre stage. Accusations, it sounded like, and defensive denial. He grasped for familiarity and comfort, trying to focus so he could rest. On Rewind. On Chromedome. On Swerve. On--

A weight struck him full force as a mech broke through his table and crushed the cube he was holding against his abdomen. His optics were slow to activate as hands --  _ claws, must be Whirl _ \-- scraped at him as his aft hit the floor.

The conversation had ceased, though the music blared on.

“You don’t know anything, Whirl, you’re just a fragging thug.” Rodimus recognized the voice. It was Streetsweeper, one of the drones that had been a part of Cybertron’s police force before the war. Like Prowl, as it happened. “The weird nutjob that does favours for Senators and the Primes.”

“You’re drunk, Streetsweeper," Rewind called out, urgent, and Whirl hauled himself off of Rodimus. The young Prime pushed himself up the see the belligerent ex-police officer five quarts to the wind and glaring at the slight drone. “Just sit back down and pay for the broken tables.”

“Say that again,” Streetsweeper sneered, taking an unsteady step forward. “You think your cojunx can protect you with his little needles?”

“There’s no reason to get into a fight,” Rodimus said, forcing cheer into his voice. “You’ve just ingested too much engex.”

“Oh, I’m  _ sorry, _ does one of the fragging  _ Primes _ think he can tell me how to think?” the ex-police drone demanded. “It’s your fault we’re out here on this stupid, pointless mission anyway. There aren’t  _ really  _ any Knights of Cybertron, are there?”

“Thunderclash believes they’re real,” Rodimus said, and the smile was as brittle as overheated glass. “He’s out here looking too. He thinks it’s worth doing.”

“Slag Thunderclash, and slag you too,” Streetsweeper spat. “Where’d you even get the genius idea anyway?”

_ “I saw it,” Drift said urgently, grasping at Rodimus’ hand. The young Prime watched his expression closely, devouring the animated, fully alive look with eyes and ears. “I saw Cybertopia. It’s real.” _

_ “Drift, you almost died,” Rodimus said, his voice cracking. “What were you-- why--” _

_ “I didn’t mean to worry you, but I didn’t have another choice. Listen to me, Rod. Everything’s gone to slag and Cybertron is only barely habitable, but there’s another place we can go. We find Cybertopia and we can make everything right again.” Drift searched his expression for understanding. “I know you want that as much as I do.” _

_ Rodimus nodded once. “You get us a ship, I’ll get us there. I promise.” _

“Listen--”

“What's going on here?” Magnus thundered. The participants struggled and stopped, glaring across the ruins of the barroom at one another. Rodimus straightened and dusted himself off lightly. “This is the kind of thing I expect from some of you, but in others I’m disappointed.”

“You know what they say about expectations,” Rodimus said, and the ex-Enforcer turned on him with a scowl that could peel paint. “It was just a little disagreement, lubricated by high-grade. No need to break out the stasis cuffs.”

A buzz of conversation rose up, speculative, and Rodimus forced himself to smile.

“Uh, Rod,” Swerve said in an undertone that reminded him for a moment of Swindle. “What about the damage to my bar? Who’s going to pay the tab?”

Magnus swelled, ready to bellow at the metallurgist when a quiet observation was made behind him: “The Co-Captains will evaluate the situation and compensate you appropriately. Make certain you have everything in order.”

“Ten? Ten?” the ex-legislator asked, worried as he peered in. Megatron stood at the doorway, seeming to fill it with his square bulk, frowning as he crossed his arms. Conversation fell away, and out of the corner of one optic, Rodimus saw someone unplug the jukebox, making the silence total.

“We absolutely will,” Rodimus promised. “Right now, in fact.” He hopped over some of the debris and hurried towards Megatron with a casual wave. “You can take care of this, right Maggie?”

“Rodimus,” Magnus said, with a tone of voice that let the young Prime knew he was going to catch Junkion later, and then returned to glaring at the bar patrons.

“Perfect, see you later,” Rodimus said, grabbing Megatron’s arm and swinging him away from the bar. From somewhere nearby, Ravage growled. “Sorry for interrupting your hot date.”

“Magnus has surveillance systems planted in Swerve’s, in case there’s another Brainstorm-esque emergency,” Megatron admitted. “He monitors them routinely. I don’t think he’s ever quite stopped being a security officer.”

“Magnus  _ spies _ on the crew?” Rodimus felt stunned. “I know he doesn’t like it here, but that seems extreme.”

“Bars are public areas,” Megatron reminded him. “Ordinarily I would discuss the discomfort of police surveillance in such locations, but considering Brainstorm once  _ poisoned  _  the entire crew, and that’s the  _ least  _  horrifying thing we’ve had happen since I was on this ship alone, I felt that he might have a point. Also, you’re wrong.”

“What a shocking development that no one’s addressed in the past,” Rodimus said, rolling his optics. “What about this time?”

“Magnus likes being here,” Megatron replied, pushing Rodimus’ hand off of his arm as they began to walk. “He considers it to be his home.”

“He doesn’t like me and he doesn’t trust me,” the young Prime said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice. “He didn’t trust Drift either. That’s why he came the first time and that’s why he’s here now.”

Megatron studied him for a time, and Rodimus glared at him. “You aren’t recharging properly,” he observed.

“I recharge fine,” Rodimus snapped. “You see me recharge all the time.”

“You take naps in public locations, and wander around during the night-cycle, bothering those simply wanting to rest,” Megatron noted, and Ravage sniggered.

“Shut up, cat,” the younger mech snarled. “So what? People think I’m lazy.”

“If someone had thrown someone else into me while I was sleeping, and then proceeded to demand answers from me, I wouldn’t have diffused the situation quickly and well,” Megatron noted. “There was a time I just would have killed them, or ripped off a limb to make a point. You have done any number of things in my time knowing you, some of them stupid, lazy, dangerous, and ill-advised--”

“Great pep talk from the person who shot me and threw me into space,” Rodimus muttered.

“--but you still have the loyalty of your crew,” Megatron finished. “Why do you think Magnus doesn’t trust you?”

“First, he doesn’t act like it,” Rodimus said. “Second, I’ve messed up so many things it’s not even all that funny any more. Third, I did once steal his spaceship and his  _ open  _ cabinet full of guns and crash land it into your secret meteor lair.”

“I remember that. You tricked the guards, assaulted Starscream, stole the Matrix, and nearly got away scot free.” Megatron chuckled, a rich sound that shivered through Rodimus. “You should have seen the look on his face when I asked him about it.”

“I was busy floating through space, but yeah, must have been great.” Rodimus smiled, though it felt brittle.

“It was, it was…” Megatron mused, and looked to him. “If you can’t recharge at night, you should talk to someone. Rung.”

_ “I think you’d better leave now.” _

“Not interested,” Rodimus replied breezily. “There are better things we could be discussing.”

“Like the reason why we’re really looking for the Knights of Cybertron?” Megatron guessed, and Rodimus stiffened. “Since you were the one to interrupt my ‘hot date’, I thought it’s only right that I be the one to start off our awkward conversation.”

Rodimus vented slowly. “Not in the hall. Magnus might decide it’s public enough that it deserves ‘surveillance’.”

“In which case, the question becomes… your room, or mine?”

~ * ~

“Let me take a look at you,” Ratchet ordered, and Hot Rod grimaced. It had been scant weeks since he’d rescued the Sparkling, but already the young mech insisted that Ratchet was overly fussy and grumpy. “Don’t make that face at me, I warned you about going out on your own.”

The clinic was barely visible around the ruins of the Dead End. As conflict raged across the surface of Cybertron, Ratchet had clung to this place as a small sanctuary, and the best -- only -- place to properly raise one barely out of the Well. Hot Rod had already proven to be rebellious and impulsive: aside from  _ the incident with the candy  _ as Ratchet referred to it, Hot Rod tended to stray away from home, coming back with scratches and at low fuel.

“You’re too old to go out looking for supplies,” Hot Rod replied as Ratchet lifted his arm and tutted at the long scrape along the outside. “I found some, but I got caught and had to burn tire getting out of there. It makes it hard to turn properly. It’s not a big  _ deal,  _ Ratchet.”

“Of course it isn’t,” Ratchet said, plainly disbelieving him. “Let me patch you up, then we can see what you brought home.”

“I  _ have  _ an auto-repair, you told me that approximately seven billion times,” Hot Rod said, rolling his optics. “Won’t it just fix itself?”

_ Use of auto-repair slows Spark function. It’s small, incremental, but it adds up.  _ Ratchet frowned at him direly. “Your auto-repair is for emergencies when we can’t get medical supplies. We’re doing well enough now.”

“Okay.” Hot Rod sat while Ratchet rooted around in one of the enforced chests they’d obtained last week, and found a tube of sealant. It was all but spent, almost entirely flat, but Ratchet managed to coax out a thin line, drawing it over the scrape and massaging it into the missing paint with his fingers. The young mech fidgeted, fussing with the big, white chevrons near one of his knees. It was hard for him to keep still. He always wanted to  _ move  _ and be somewhere else, no matter where that somewhere was. “Hey, uh, Ratchet? I had a question, maybe you can answer it.”

“Hold still,” Ratchet murmured as he worked. “There. What question is that, Hot Rod?”

“Why is there a war?”

Ratchet’s entire chassis seized up, and for a moment, he feared this was the end. That the arc-out he’d courted for decades was coming now, in this place, with a tube of sealant in his hands and on his knees.

“Ratchet?” Hot Rod’s voice sounded distant, and a little frightened. The young mech put his hands on the medic’s shoulders, tugging him back to awareness. “I’m sorry, I just wanted to know.”

Where had he been, when the Senate had been executed? In his clinic, operating on a dying patient. She’d had her fuel lines punctured in an industrial accident, not the first, not the last. She’s clung to him and whined. Her vocalizer had been badly damaged, so she was unable to focus enough to use machine speak and in too much pain to speak aloud. Her voice had whined on and on as he’d worked. He listened to the news broadcasts, and he’d missed the announcement the first time.

It had only been when the one responsible for the assassination, the Decepticon leader Megatron, had seized the airwaves and declared that the Senate would never murder another drone that it had hit him. When his patient had sighed out her relief and died, offlining in a puddle of energon under his hands, that he’d become fully aware of the war that Orion Pax had warned him of.

“Death,” Ratchet murmured, and drew Hot Rod to him, embracing him as tightly as he could. “There is war because there is death, and death embraces war with dark wings. On a better world, you wouldn’t have Ignited into a time that hasn’t known peace.”

“Hey,” Hot Rod murmured, hugging him back. “Hey, it’s okay, Ratchet. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll stop the war for you.”

Ratchet laughed, even as he shuddered. “You’re a good Sparkling, but I’m afraid it’s more complicated than that. This war has lasted a long time. Before the first move was declared. It started because things were not… fair. Not fair to those constructed cold, not fair to those who wanted to be greater than their alt-modes. Not fair to a lot of people. But… death isn’t fair either, not really. It takes so many and leaves so little behind. Lots of people die, Hot Rod, and most of them don’t deserve it.”

“Dying sounds terrible,” Hot Rod declared. “I’m going to avoid it as long as I can.”

Ratchet laughed again and released him. “I certainly hope so. Why don’t you show me what you’ve found?”

Hot Rod nodded, and removed a half-dozen boxes from his subspace, setting them down haphazardly one on top of the other. “Those ones there are energon cubes, I think they said. These ones up here are for medical. I think that’s something else, I didn’t understand all the words.”

Ratchet nodded, looking at each of the boxes, then stopped, giving Hot Rod a sharp look. “What do you mean by ‘they’? Were there people guarding these?”

Hot Rod nodded. “Yeah, three or four. I just grabbed what I could and took off. That’s how I got my scrape.”

“Did you  _ steal  _ people’s supplies?!” Ratchet demanded, his voice rising suddenly with a hint of hysterical edge. “Are you stealing from people now?!”

“Well, I mean…” Hot Rod fiddled with his chevrons again. “When we go scavenging, those things used to belong to other people, didn’t they? But we still take them, because we need them. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Didn’t think it was a  _ big-- _ ” Ratchet swelled with anger, and then forced himself not to scream at the younger mech. “When we scavenge it’s because those things belong to those who have died, or who abandoned their homes and remaining possessions. We take those things so we can save  _ lives.  _ The living still need these supplies. Do you remember where you took them from?”

Hot Rod hesitated a moment, then nodded.

“Good, pack these things up. We’re going back there to return them,” Ratchet declared briskly. “Let’s get a move on.”

“But, Ratchet--”

Ratchet glared at him, and the younger mech lapsed into silence, dutifully placing the boxes back into his subspace. The medic shooed Hot Rod away from the clinic, carefully concealing the entrance with fallen and damaged plates of steel and ceramic before transforming into his rescue vehicle mode, murky orange and grey-white, waiting for Hot Rod.

The young mech arched backwards, transforming into a bright red, orange, and gold speeder vehicle, flames crawling along his front and sizes.

[This way, I’ll go slow.] There was little more warning than that before Hot Rod shot out onto the empty streets. Ratchet followed at a more sedate pace, forcing the speedster to throttle back. The Dead End had largely been abandoned as worthless, everything of value stripped from it as combatants and vagrants alike moved on.

Ratchet’s clinic had been cleverly hidden, thanks to good friends that were long gone to other avenues of conflict. As they’d departed, each had begged Ratchet to come with them, to be protected and safe, serving alongside those who could defend him, but Ratchet had always refused.  _ It’s not my war,  _ he’d thought.  _ I am a servant of Cybertron, from the Primes to the lowest maintenance drone, I’m here to heed the call. _

It had been cycles since anyone aside from Hot Rod had come to him for help. Everyone had moved on. Everyone and everything, even the war.

They found Hot Rod’s pursuers before they found the cache. Battered and dented mechs drove up beside them, fields flaring with anger and confusion.

[We’re here to return your stolen supplies,] Ratchet announced on open frequency. [Please, take us to your base.]

[Who are you supposed to be?] demanded one of the mechs, a bright yellow car with augmented tires and treads. [Are you a medic? If you are, we could really use some help here--]

[Quiet up, Hot Shot,] the other mech snapped. [You don’t know who they are. They could be Decepticons.]

Hot Rod flipped out of his alt-mode, and held up his hands. “Hey, Ratchet’s the best medic on Cybertron. I get that you’re mad at me for being better than you--” The dented mechs revved their engines loudly with displeasure. “--but  _ he’s  _ on the level, completely.”

[The boss will know what to do,] Hot Shot said reluctantly. [Come on, Highwire. Let’s go.]

The other mech didn’t reply, or didn’t seem to as Hot Rod returned to his alt mode, and allowed himself to be herded. Ratchet drove behind him, and focused his words solely on Hot Rod. [Everything will be fine. We’ll simply explain the situation and all will be well.]

Hot Rod didn’t reply, and simply vented exhaust. Ratchet could read frustration in his fields, jagged purple and edged with green, and in many ways, the medic didn’t blame him: he was so young, and had so little understanding of what this war was.  _ Death. Nothing but death and lies… _

If the war in Rodion was over, the war in Nyon was only just truly beginning. As they traveled from the edges of one great city to the next, the world around them changed so abruptly that Ratchet’s Spark skipped. There were still buildings here, scorched and war-scarred as they were. The streets were full of barricades, and their escort transformed back, forcing Ratchet and Hot Rod to copy them.

Highwire was a pale blue mech, slender and just on the edge of being large enough to qualify as a four-wheeled ground vehicle. He stepped behind the pair, weapon drawn. While a battle mask covered his lips and nose, he was angry enough that it boiled from his fields. Hot Shot walked out in front, and he was shorter, more solidly built, and a grimy yellow that had much to do with the state of things in Nyon and less to do with his own natural paint job. Ratchet’s fingers itched to repair the sizable dent in his rear back plating, and the dozens of scrapes that his auto-repair was surely struggling with.

Every few dozen paces, Ratchet could see barrels of fuel burning, plugged into battery packs for weapon loadouts.  _ Please tell me that’s just combustible material,  _ Ratchet thought, hands clenching.  _ Don’t tell me that’s energon. They’ll starve to keep themselves fighting. Surely not going offline from hunger is more important than shooting people. _

“The dead don’t need energon,” Highwire said abruptly, as though he could read Ratchet’s thoughts -- or perhaps his fields were all too obvious. “We fight, we live, then we ingest. That’s how it goes. I doubt things were different over in Rodion.”

“Who… who are you fighting?” Hot Rod asked, taking in the scene. “What happened?”

“Decepticons,” announced a voice from ahead of them. “You’ve got a lot of nerve coming back here, Flame Aft.”

“We’re here to return your supplies,” Ratchet called. “Please, don’t shoot.”

“You’re not worth the power packs, old timer,” the voice replied, and a figure stepped out from the shadows. Grime formed a film over orange-pink plating, carrying a sniper rifle, and she was roughly Highwire’s height. Ratchet could feel Highwire snap to attention behind him. “Who are you?”

“My name is Ratchet, and this is Hot Rod. He’s very sorry he stole from you.”

“Yeah,” Hot Rod muttered. “Stealing isn’t the same as scavenging, I guess.”

“Huh,” the mech replied. “Well, unpack it, we need to take a look. Grindor, get over here and run an inventory.”

“What are we going to do with them, Sureshock?” Hot Shot asked. “Are we just making them leave? One of them’s a medic. A real one.”

“A medic, hm? We’ll see.” Sureshock eyed each of them in turn, frowning when Hot Rod smiled at her, and turned. “Sit your afts down at the base.”

The base, as it happened, was a dead end in one of the alleys, guarded from all sides with camouflage webbing concealing them from flyover scouting. Hot Rod removed each of the packages from subspace while a dark blue mech with a propeller on his back sorted through them.

“Everything is there,” Ratchet promised. “I noticed some of you have injuries. I can treat them--”

“Those are dents, we’ll get over them,” Sureshock said. “What I need is those who are in stasis lock treated. Jolt and Sparkplug are there, in that building.” She pointed. “We lost Rollbar a few nights ago during a bombing run.”

“Why did they attack you?” Hot Rod asked, urgent. “What’s going on?”

“The Decepticons only see two sides to this war,” Sureshock said, hefting her rifle. “Them, and everyone else. Maybe it wasn’t always like that, but it is now. It doesn’t matter what things were like before, because they won’t be like that again. Right now, we have to do everything we can to survive to see the next sunrise.”

“But… why?” Hot Rod asked. “Why this? Why?”

“It’s-- Hot Shot began, but Sureshock raised a hand, cutting him off.

“We’re not storytellers. It doesn’t matter why. Either you pick a side, or both sides try to off you. Senate, Decepticons… even so-called neutrals.”

Ratchet recalled the rallies, calling for the emancipation of drone slaves. He recalled the riots. The senate meetings. Pharma’s growing concerns, Orion’s worried expression, Perceptor’s decision to join the Autobots. He shook his head.

“I’ll see what I can do for them. Hot Rod… stay here. If you have a nurse, I’ll gladly take their help.”

Sureshock pursed her lip plates, but jerked her head towards the door. “Grindor, go. Highwire, Hot Shot, and I can watch one mech.”

“What about the medic?” Grindor asked, picking up some of the boxes. “What if he causes trouble?”

“Medics don’t cause trouble.”

“I won’t be causing any,” Ratchet promised, and went into one of the buildings. There was little lighting, and Ratchet flicked on his optical illumination, lying around. His patients, a helicopter with colouring similar to Sureshock’s and a ground vehicle with colouring similar to Hot Shot’s, were easy to find. “Grindor, was it? Step over here and let’s get things done.”

It was hours before Ratchet was done -- Jolt, stable; Sparkplug, offline -- and he could take Hot Rod home. More hours to drive all the way back to Rodion and let Sureshock and her freedom fighters mourn their dead and celebrate their living. Minutes to embrace Hot Rod and hold onto him tightly. Half a day of recharge, splintered by nightmares of holding Hot Rod’s leaking form in his arms, unable to fight Mortilus back. A few minutes to quickly ingest the cube Hot Rod had left for him.

...and only moments to find the note the young mech had left with it.

_ Ratchet -- _

_ Going to Nyon. If everything I’ve heard is true, the war needs people to end it. The war needs  _ me _ to end it. I’m not good at scavenging or hiding or fixing people that are broken. I think I can be good at fighting. I think I can do this. _

_ We’ll see each other again. This isn’t goodbye. I’ll stop the war for you, I promise. _

_ \-- Hot Rod _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When lonely days turn to lonely nights  
> you take a trip to the city lights  
> And take the long way home  
> Take the long way home  
> \- Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp


	3. Calamity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of this round of flashbacks, with a lengthier Drift and Ratchet sequence, because next time, Rodimus is going to save the multiverse. Multiple Rodimii, multiple universes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You never see what you want to see  
> Forever playing to the gallery  
> You take the long way home  
> Take the long way home  
> \- Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp

The mining schedules were always long and grueling. One of the things they were told, to encourage them as tanks kissed empty and joints decayed from constant abuse, was that they were better at their function than any organic being in existence. That eighteen hour shifts would kill most organics. That they needed to eat constantly to keep up, that they needed to ‘sleep’ rather than merely recharging, a fact that made them both vulnerable and weak.

Some of the miners believed it, but Megatron was never entirely sure that he did: it was a matter of time. Yes, organics needed rest, but so did they. Perhaps less often, perhaps on less luxurious beds, but organics and mechanicals alike still fell apart when they were exploited and used for the betterment of those who deserved none of their labour.

Somewhere, out there in the great, wide galaxy, there were organics leaking and venting and offlining from exhaustion. They were red-lining their tanks -- or whatever they were called -- trying to get through their day. Perhaps they were, as he was, sitting in the mess hall with their small ration of organic energon, trying to hold onto this small amount of rest before they were returned to the grindstone.

“Deep in thought again, I see,” said a voice, and Megatron looked up. The mech who looked down at him bore him a striking resemblance, due less to any kind of kinship and more to the same, standard template design meant for mining drones. “Dare I ask about what?”

“Terminus, please, sit,” Megatron said, and the older mech did. “It’s…” He glanced around, worried. “The usual.”

“Ah yes, ‘the usual’.” Terminus’ chuckle chugged like an engine. “As though there were anything usual about someone who has the time or the brainpower to think about aught but their work.”

Megatron’s fields flushed with pleasure and embarrassment. “I know you think I’m strange--”

“Strange? Oh yes. Not wrong, though. Not wrong. Have you given thought to what you want to do with all that swirls around in your mind?”

“I want to… to tell people, somehow,” Megatron said. “Express myself without… without fear of retaliation, or being mocked.”

“I thought you might.” Terminus nodded, and Megatron felt something nudge against his knee under the table. It was hard and blunt, with a soft edge. He reached for it immediately. “Data-pad. It fell off the back of a cart while they were doing their filing. It’s already been wiped, and there’s enough room for you to get started.”

Megatron’s optics widened, but he took the data-pad, and for a moment it felt impossibly heavy with potential.  _ Everything I do, everything I decide, starts here. Where should I begin? I’ve wanted to write down my poems for a long time, but Terminus is surely expecting me to write down all of my thoughts about the state of us, we drones, we Cybertronians. Then there’s-- _

“Careful, Sparkling, or you might pop your panels right here.” Terminus chuckled at him as Megatron flushed, and quickly tucked the data-pad away. “You have time, we’re on a rest shift for a few hours before we begin again.”

“What should I write first?” Megatron asked, looking to his mentor. “Where should I start?”

“Where you should start is stopping looking to me for answers,” Terminus said, humour draining from him as his voice went gruff. “Teaching you is one thing, but what would happen if something happened to me, hm? What would you do?”

“I…” Megatron stared at him helplessly. “I don’t know what I’d do. I’d try to find you.”

“No,” Terminus said. “Life is cheap here. Any one of us can leak out and offline at any time. Spark death. More than that, we don’t get many in the way of medics, and those that do show up would as soon as dissect you as they would fix you up.”

“That’s why we need to stick together, to protect each other,” Megatron insisted. “We can’t push each other down, we need to lift each other up. We need to--”

“So that’s what’s on your mind, hm?” Terminus asked, shaking his head. “I appreciate the sentiment, but you need to be realistic.”

“I thought you said I wasn’t supposed to compromise,” Megatron said. “This is my vision, and it’s what I believe.”

“You’re right, I did,” Terminus conceded. “So, how do you intend to make the rest of the world fall in line?”

“I’ll… I’ll  _ tell  _ them,” Megatron said. “I’ll  _ show  _ them how and why and where. It’s wrong, Terminus. All of it’s  _ wrong  _ and some days it feels like I’m the only one who sees it.”

“Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t,” Terminus said, placing his hand on the table. Megatron looked down at it. The old mining drone’s hand was battered, scarred and pitted from centuries of hard work. The hazard plating on Terminus’ hand was scratched and worn away in places, and Megatron couldn’t help but to reach out and touch over it, then let his hand rest on his friend’s. “Sometimes, people feel things that they can’t put into words. They need someone to speak them first so they can agree. Now, you can wait for someone else to do that… or you can be the voice.”

Megatron nodded slowly, and squeezed his hand. “I will be the voice. The voice of the last generation to be born into slavery.”

Terminus smiled. “That’s the ticket, Sparkling. That’s the orichalcum ticket.”

~ * ~

“Hey, you forgot your cube again.” Drift straightened, the spell of speeding mechs broken with Flintheel’s words. She held the cube out to him, smiling to herself. “Don’t starve yourself by getting distracted.”

“No, of course not. I’m sorry.” Drift lifted the cube to his mouth to drink as his eye was caught by a trio of speeding ground vehicles. He drank clumsily, and sputtered.

“Easy, easy,” Flintheel said, and reached out, rubbing her hand across Drift’s chestplates to clean the energon away. Sensation tingled through the young mech. He was still getting used to being touched, and Flintheel tended to touch him a great deal: fingers brushed across the chestplate, a hand on his arm, the feeling of fields stroked against his. Every time, it tingled across his senses, teaching him new things.

Mostly, it was that he wanted her to do it again.

“Sorry,” Drift said again, and this time drank the cube down steadily and quickly, getting it over with. “It’s just that they’re so…”

“Fast?” Flintheel suggested, and leaned on the railing next to him. “It’s an impressive bunch. More to racing than just speed, though. You need to be tough.”

“Of course,” Drift said, nodding to those racing through the streets. “That orange one there… it’s not going to make it. It’s too fast, pulling ahead of the others like that. Someone’s going to shoot his tires out.”

Flintheel nodded. “Probably that one there, the purple one in third. Might take out second too. You’ve got good eyes.”

Drift ducked his head, bashful. “Thank you. It’s just… easy to see from here, I guess.”

“I guess so,” Flintheel allowed, studying his form for a moment, optics sliding down his lines. “I was thinking about something.”

Drift turned his gaze to her, suddenly intent. “Yes? What is it?”

She smiled, and gestured over the railing. “You ever want to give it a shot? Racing, that is.”

“I…” Drift began, and Flintheel put a hand over his. The tingling feeling returned, and didn’t stop, numbing his brain module and mouth for what happened next: “All the time.”

“Then why don’t you?” she asked, and their optics met. Drift could barely hear her over the static roar in his audials. “I think you’d be perfect at it. I can get you set up right now, and you can join in the next race.”

“Please,” Drift whispered. “Please, I’ll do anything.”

“Of course you will,” Flintheel purred. “You’re a born racer. Now, there’s just a little fee for entering, but we’ll cover it for you, once you win.”

That seemed to clear his head as his Spark skipped. “You’d do that? For me?”

“Of course I would,” Flintheel said, and nudged a little closer, bumping her hip against his. “There are a lot of things I’d do for you.”

Drift felt his intake go dry as his mouth struggled to find the right thing to say. Instead, he only nodded.  _ I can do this. I know I can. I can race and I can win. _

“Wonderful, now come with me.” Flintheel took his hand, and tugged him away from the race track. Drift’s gaze went to the racing vehicles, and watched as one of them missed a turn, hurtling headlong into one of the nearby buildings. “Someone’s not finishing.”

“I have to--” Drift pulled away from her, hurrying towards the flames. “I have to help.”

“What are you  _ doing?” _ the slender mech demanded, anger flashing in her optics. “We have business to discuss!”

“Someone’s in trouble, I can’t not help,” Drift insisted, and hurtled over the railing, grabbing at the steel framework of the overpass before using his transformation to cushion his fall. He sped towards the fire, engines working hard.  _ They could still be alive. They could have survived that crash. We’re tough. _

Mechs shot past him in their vehicle modes, too fast to stop and save one of their own. Drift felt their speed vibrate through the streets and into him, and it was nothing like the tingling of another person’s touch. It was heavier and deeper, less personal, and for a moment, Drift felt angry.

_ You could stop,  _ he thought bitterly as he transformed, and started to dig.  _ You could help. They’re fellow racers. It could be you. This could be you. _

The fire had mostly burned itself out by the time he found the racer, twisted in death as their transformation-cog had struggled to assert itself, trapping them half in their alt mode and half in their root mode. Smoke and dirt turned bright red paint into something dull and dead as protoflesh went grey, and then colour leeched from the rest of the bot.

“Drift,” Flintheel called. “There are other people who can clean this up.”

“What was their name?” Drift asked instead, brushing his fingers over the mech’s optics. It didn’t matter, the mech was already dead. They could feel nothing, hear nothing. He knew names -- Mortilus, Primus -- but he didn’t understand them. They meant nothing to him.

“Dash,” Flintheel said. “Drift, come on, you said you wanted to race.”

“I do,” Drift said, and gently set the mech down. “I won’t forget you Dash, I promise.”

“Touching, I’m sure he appreciates it,” Flintheel noted. “Now, come with me. There’s a lot of work to be done before you start.”

Drift nodded once and then rose, looking at the grime on his fingers for a moment before meeting Flintheel’s gaze. He reached for her, eager for comfort, for touch. Flintheel snapped her fingers and turned, sending up sparks with her heels.

Drift’s intake contracted hard, and he hurried to follow.

~ * ~~

“I’m amazed she didn’t kick your aft back to pre-med,” Pharma said, for the third time in the past sixty minutes. Ratchet had objected the first time, protested the second, and now all he could do was roll his optics and let the jet talk. “You realize that it’s impossible, don’t you?”

“You’ve said so twice before,” Ratchet said wearily, and sipped at his cube of energon. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t be so the third time.”

“You’re mocking me,” Pharma chided. “I’m right, you know. I always am.”

“You’ve said that before as well,” Ratchet pointed out, and drank more deeply this time. “I don’t see why it  _ has  _ to be impossible, inherently. If I work hard, if I’m sharp, if I’m blessed with the hands Adaptus gave me--”

“Gave  _ us, _ Ratchet. Please.”

“Gave  _ us, _ I don’t see that there’s a reason I should lose a patient,” Ratchet finished. “There are plenty of discoveries left to be made. Plenty of cures. I’ll work at it, as we all should.”

“It’s not  _ realistic,” _ Pharma reiterated, and Ratchet was relieved he was at least using different words. “What are you going to do about all of the--”

“Doctor Ratchet!” called a voice, and Ratchet turned, relieved to hear someone  _ else  _ talk for a change. The speaker was a drone, though a very pretty one: the mech was female-frame, and pastel pink. She was slender, and her face was constructed to seem as though she were always in a good mood, smiling brightly. She had two tires, one on each shoulder, and looping cords coming from the back of her head like an organic being’s hair, giving the impression of bounciness and energy. On her forehead, the Academy had welded a special chevron in the shape of a cross.

“Joyride,” Ratchet replied warmly, and stood. “I’m not a doctor yet, but soon.”

“Your guest called you ‘doctor’,” the nurse-drone replied cheerfully. “He’s right over there.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think he’s trying to lurk, but he’s terrible at it. He’s one of the biggest mechs I’ve ever seen.”

Pharma’s expression turned intrigued, and Ratchet chuckled. “We’ll have to continue this conversation later, Pharma. Orion is here.”

“You should introduce me,” Pharma said as Joyride hurried off, message delivered. “I’m curious about your other friends.”

“Perhaps later,” Ratchet said, and looked around. As promised, his visitor was trying to lurk and failing at it desperately. Large in all of the ways Joyride was slender and small, Orion Pax seemed to tower over most of the mechs at Iacon’s Academy, distinct with his contrast of red and blue. Even from the distance Ratchet was rapidly closing, he could see that Orion didn’t exactly gleam the way other mechs did. He didn’t have glitter in his paint, nor was he highlighted to show off his best lines. In his own way, Orion was plain, and that plainness made him distinctive.

“Ratchet,” Orion began, holding his hands out to his friend. “Thank you for seeing me.”

Ratchet reached for his hands and squeezed them. Where the soon-to-be doctor’s fingers were smooth and elegant, Orion’s were dented and scraped from hard work, rough in places where the finish had been worn down. “Why wouldn’t I, Orion? Aren’t we friends?”

“Of course, it’s just that I know you’re busy,” Orion replied, and drew back his combat mask. Behind it, the big mech had a small, soft smile, and Ratchet couldn’t help but lean up to press his lip-plates to the corner of Orion’s mouth. “There’s something I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Of course, let’s take a walk,” Ratchet replied. Orion offered the medic his arm, and Ratchet took it. The Academy grounds were beautiful, a garden of adamant and transparisteel, and Ratchet led Orion along one of the paths. “Tell me what it is.”

“You understand, I tend to work in the lower city,” Orion began. “There are other officers who handle crime for the highest ranking members of Cybertronian society, but I’m not one of them.”

“Of course,” Ratchet said. “You prefer to get your hands dirty.”

“I do,” Orion said, venting slowly. “Which means I’ve seen many things, even now. One of those things is a need, Ratchet. A need to help the lower castes.”

“The Functionists are never kind to the lower class,” Ratchet observed. “Nor is the Senate really, with one or two exceptions.”

“Yes, my… mentor, Shockwave, and Dominus Ambus,” Orion said. “They do what they can from the top, but from the bottom… people still suffer. People who are denied their most basic needs. Energon, shelter… medical care.”

A frisson moved through Ratchet’s spinal strut, all the way up to his Spark. “You’re looking for doctors, aren’t you? You’re looking for help.”

“I am, yes.” Orion stopped, looking down at Ratchet with glowing eyes, his mouth pressed into a line. “I’ve seen… brutality. At the hands of fellow officers, at the hands of thugs who get away with it because they  _ can. _ Things no one has the time or the inclination or the  _ skill  _ to stop. I’m not a medic, Ratchet. I’m not rich and I’m not influential. What I do have, I believe, is good friends. The very best friends.” He turned and placed both hands on Ratchet’s shoulders, sincerity shining through. “Can I count on you for help?”

Ratchet felt his Spark flip, turning in on itself, unable to look away from the blue of Orion’s eyes, nor the serious, solemn expression on his face. He found himself nodding, and wasn’t even surprised by the next words that came from his mouth.

“Always, Orion. You will always have my friendship. What is it that you want for me to do?”

Orion’s smile was, in and of itself, a greater reward than he could have otherwise imagined.

~ * ~

“I thought you said you took care of him!” Lifeboat wailed, clutching at the side of the vessel. Drift ignored her, focusing on dodging the sizzling bolt of energy that streaked past him. As it turned out, the ocean wasn’t completely endless. Lifeboat and Calamity’s home base was on an atoll made of sand, metal, and garbage, with just enough room for their incredibly small shuttle. “We’re being shot by a fish with slagging  _ laser beams!” _

“It’s a Sharkticon,” Ratchet pointed out. “So it’s a  _ shark  _ with slagging laser beams. Which Drift is welcome to do something about  _ any time now.” _

“To first fight the Sharkticon, you must become one with the Sharkticon,” Drift intoned. “Also, I need to get back in the water. Depthcharge’s most comfortable habitat.”

“I don’t like this,” Ratchet said. “But you’ve got as much sealant as I can give you. We’ll have to test it live. No transforming!”

“It’s not as though I could drive at the bottom of the ocean anyway,” Drift noted, and closed his battle mask. “Guard the civilians, I’m going in.” The younger mech took three steps forward and leaped into the water in a dive.

“Drift!” Ratchet called out, and the rest of what he said was lost, but the medic supplied it via direct communication, [Be careful.]

[Always, Ratchet. Always.]

Drift sank like a stone. His frame wasn’t meant to be submersed in water. He had only one form, and nothing he scanned ever changed out of the triad of innate traits he possessed: fast, maneuverable, sturdy. A long time ago, he’d believed that would make him a racer and he was wrong.  _ The only thing I became good at was racing into and out of trouble. So why not add ‘race to the rescue’ to that list? _

Shafts of sunlight pressed down into the water, giving Drift limited vision. As before, his vision wavered and he compensated for it. As Depthcharge fired again, Drift could see a burst of light and heat from where the Sharkticon was hiding, and it was deep, very deep.

_ I’m sinking now, but soon I’m going to need to move, otherwise I’ll sink right past him.  _ Drift engaged his engines, and they whined through the water, distorting the sound. It was enough to push him forward so he sank at an angle, towards Depthcharge.  _ No way to swing my swords, even if I hadn’t left them with Ratchet to avoid losing them. No weapons to fire. It’s just me, my fists, and my faith.  _ Drift flexed his hands.  _ And I never run out of fists. _

Ratchet had long mocked his spiritualism, and in some ways, Drift didn’t blame him. Ratchet had seen much of what the Primes had done in the past, and that level of betrayal was something he took personally. Megatron and the other Decepticons had said many of the same things.  _ He  _ had said many of the same things, when his name had been Deadlock and his path had been stained with energon.

_ The difference is, now we live in a time and a place with a Prime that forgives, and a Warlord that never did. If you made mistakes, Megatron never forgot. He never forgave. You were lucky if you died in battle. If you were deemed a traitor… _

Drift angled himself as momentum took him towards Depthcharge, and he struck the Sharkticon feet-first, lashing out at the blaster module affixed to the top of his head. Depthcharge roared, turning to strike Drift with his fist. The opposing force hurtled him away, and Drift struggled to right himself so he would hit the ocean floor feet-first. Depthcharge pursued, blasting noise over a general-frequency comm.

_ I’ve seen that movie on Earth,  _ Drift thought.  _ The sequels were terrible. _

Transformed, the Sharkticon was enormous, twice Drift’s size. It made him an easier target, but increased the chances of him simply biting Drift’s head off and being done with him. Depthcharge struck, biting out at him, and Drift slammed his fist into his foe’s nose-plate. The Sharkticon reeled, stunned in place as Drift continued to sink.

_ There is no peace when you’re too afraid to make war,  _ Drift thought. He let his fields open, sensing the rippling of the water around him. He wasn’t good in confined spaces, he prefered open air -- the wind made more sense than water -- but with Depthcharge this close, he couldn’t afford to be picky.  _ Freedom is the freedom to say no. To say ‘I disagree’. The freedom to offer your opinion and have it considered along with all others. There is no peace in tyranny. _

It didn’t matter who was pointing the gun, only that someone was doing it. Whether it was Bumblebee with the Inhibitor Chips, Megatron with a gun, or the Primes with their demands to be worshipped and treated like gods, they were all the same. Forcing someone to follow, forcing people to obey. Things had been different on the  _ Lost Light. _ Magnus could impose all the rules he wanted, but people could still  _ do  _ things. They had the freedom to disobey. The worst Magnus would do was put someone in one of the holding cells and lecture them.

_ You don’t even have to listen. You can just offline your audials until his mouth stops moving. I’m fairly certain Rodimus  _ did  _ do that, when we were still attending meetings together. _

The water moved around him, and Drift focused his senses. He told people he could see auras, and it was  _ mostly  _ true. Anyone could sense the fields of another Cybertronian, it’s how you expressed emotion without having a mouth, or a particularly mobile face. Even the most chockablock Cybertronian could  _ feel  _ and feelings came from the fields.

Someone had once joked they should be called ‘feel-ds’, and from what Drift understood, they’d spent the rest of their miserable life in Grindcore. Well, probably. According to Swerve, anyway.

The Circle -- Wing, Dai Atlas, Sparkhearth -- had taught him how to read fields with more precision and with more care. To observe subtle things, things that weren’t even particularly obvious to those emitting them. It’s not as if Depthcharge was trying to hide, because he wasn’t. It was that when Drift hit the ocean floor, amid tangles of seaweed and darting ocean life, he was already turning to face Depthcharge’s attack, already hauling back to hit the Sharkticon again. Already swaying backwards when he changed forms to claw at Drift’s face. Moving and shifting and catching a blow on one arm to deflect it, even as the strength of the strike dented his plating.

_ Ratchet is going to lecture me again,  _ Drift thought as he struck at Depthcharge’s knee. His opponent was unsuited to fighting hand-to-hand, and Drift recalled his time with the Circle when, without his traditional weapons, he might as well have been helpless. Now,  _ he  _ had the advantage, and he was going to use it.

Drift’s knees bent slightly as he pushed up against the sand, striking up and under Depthcharge’s guard, sending him reeling in a shallow arc. His movements felt oddly light, not as free as moving through hard vacuum, because there was far more resistance, but it was still--

The Sharkticon came at him with a blasting roar, tackling him to the ground, shaking Drift from his thoughts. There was little need for elegance at this range, not when simply punching someone in the head so hard that their optics cracked was just as effective.

_ Stupid!  _ Drift thought, angry with himself as he kicked and struggled.  _ Who do you think you are, Misfire?! Stop daydreaming and fight! _

For a time, Drift’s whole world was the struggle, fighting against Depthcharge, trying to avoid more damage. He could feel sea-water seeping in through the damage to his seals, and his vision was watery, wavering around the crack in his optic. Kicking seemed to do little, even when his blows took chunks of armour out of the Sharkticon’s legs. The bigger, heavier mech seemed intent on getting his hands around Drift’s throat.

_ If he gets his thumb through my intake, I’m done,  _ Drift thought grimly.  _ I’ll corrode from the inside and offline in the stupidest way possible since Ter-Roar said ‘hold my engex and watch this’. _ Another kick did nothing, and Drift’s arms flailed at water.  _ I don’t think I have a choice here. Sorry, Ratchet. _

Drift let his arms go limp, and his head impacted gently against the sand. Through his foggy optics, he could see Depthcharge grin, and his hands closed in. The former assassin focused on the inner warmth of his Spark, the places where it touched him. As replaceable as so much of the Cybertronian form was, it still interacted with the Holy Trinity -- brain, t-cog, Spark -- in countless ways.

_ Just because it can be removed doesn’t mean it isn’t important. It just means you can afford to do without, like skipping a meal or taking a shot to the arm. _ He could feel things inside himself: the seeping water, the strain of the pressure from Depthcharge, a dozen warning messages better left for medics to worry themselves about.

Step One: Remove the target of opportunity.

Drift’s form twisted, forcing itself against Depthcharge’s grip. The Sharkticon made a noise of surprise as, instead of a mechanoid bot, he was sitting on top of a car. Drift slammed his form into gear, and gunned his engines. They struggled against the influx of water, and his tires tore up the ocean bed, kicking up sand and seaweed.

Depthcharge roared in anger, swinging at him, though the blow glanced off of the hood of his car.

_ I can’t move like this, so it has to be fast.  _ Drift accelerated a few moments longer, flashing his cracked headlights before transforming back. It was impossible to see, and he felt as though he was full of salt water. Crystalline minerals clustered around his joints.  _ Go faster. _

Drift felt the way the sand moved as pressure and gravity forced it back into place, turned, and launched himself at the Sharkticon. Blinded as he was, he let Drift hit him once, then twice, then a third time, punishing blows that cracked already weakened plating.

[Enough,] Drift told him, punctuating each sentence with a blow. [Don’t attack the natives. Don’t attack my friends. Don’t attack me.]

[I’ll never surrender to the likes of you!] Depthcharge roared. [It’s our destiny to assert ourselves over the organics, over the weak. I’ll get you, if not today, then tomorrow. Another day. When you least--]

Drift punched the Sharkticon in the throat, cracking his intake in a single blow. His engines chugged as he struck again, and then again, flattening Depthcharge to the ocean floor.

[Drift?] Ratchet’s voice sounded worried, and it burbled and crackled in the water. [Are you alright? He stopped firing?]

[I’m fine,] Drift replied. [We were fighting, but I have him now. [Stay down,] Drift told the Sharkticon. [You have two choices. Stop and live a better life, and keep going down this path until there’s nothing left of you but scrap.]

[Slag  _ you, _ ] Depthcharge replied, struggling. [I have the right to do what I want.]

[We’re sending a line down now,] Ratchet said. [I want to see you immediately for your injuries. Is Depthcharge alive?]

_ Freedom,  _ Drift thought.  _ Freedom is the right to make your own choices, good or bad. No matter how well or ill-informed, no matter what the future holds. Freedom is for everyone. He can choose to live his life his way… _ Drift raised his foot, and slammed it down on Depthcharge’s intake, breaking it open. He pinned the Sharkticon down, watching him thrash until he stopped, and lay still.

[Drift?]

[No,] Drift replied finally. [He wouldn’t stop, I had to take him down.]

SIlence met Drift’s statement. It was so profound that Drift wondered if the line would come, right up until it tapped against his shoulder and he grasped for it, tugging the line until it pulled him upwards, away from the greying corpse that was fading from his vision.

He was blind by the time Lifeboat and Calamity pulled him out of the water back onto their vessel. He could hear, distantly, their distress as his added weight nearly sank the boat.

“You transformed, didn’t you?” Ratchet demanded, his voice cutting through the muffling. “What did I tell you?! What did I  _ say?!” _

“He’s gone,” Drift managed, and water leaked from his mouth, dribbling along his cheek. “You’re safe.”

“You’re an  _ idiot,” _ Ratchet grated, and knelt. “You could have  _ offlined.” _

“I had to protect you,” Drift wheezed. “If I don’t, who else will?”

“Stupid,” Ratchet replied, voice harsh. “I need to get your chestplates open now, to drain the water out. I won’t put anything else inside, I won’t cut anything. Will you allow it?”

_ Of course I will, I trust you, _ Drift thought as consciousness slipped from him. Ratchet’s mouth opened, and he couldn’t hear it.  _ Just like Rodimus and Magnus. I want to answer, but I can’t. I can’t make my mouth move. _

The younger mech groped around, feeling as though he were still underwater, and just before he slipped into the darkness, he gripped Ratchet’s hand as hard as he could and squeezed.

The darkness held memories, old nightmares and new dreams. The darkness held gentle touches and clinical ones, rough blows and soft embrace. The darkness held names that were both his and not.  _ Deadlock. Wing. Dai Atlas. Hot Rod. Megatron. Orion Pax. _

It was strange in so many ways, so wonderful and so cold. Words flowed through his mind on the wind. He could feel sun-warmed earth and lapping waves. He could feel the flame-bright fire and the endlessly gusting wind. He could feel so much and yet so little.

He had taken lives before. Depthcharge was not the first. He would not be the last, but he had given him a choice and his foe had taken it. He had chosen death. Drift had chosen life. Ratchet was right about him, in many ways. He would sacrifice himself to protect others, to save lives the way he’d taken them before, in another life.

“Do you want to race?”

“You’re better than this, you can start over now.”

“The world is cold and unfair, and if we don’t protect ourselves, no one else will.”

“How did you get here? Do you want to come inside?”

The words wrapped themselves around one another, without beginning or end. Words that had shaped his past, that had pushed him towards the future. Words that had changed his life, but above all, one set of words sung through him as Ratchet struggled to save his life.

_ Freedom is the right of all sentient beings. Tyranny is not, and has never been, freedom. True freedom is the absence of fear. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And when you're up on the stage, it's so unbelievable,  
> unforgettable, how they adore you,  
> But then your wife seems to think you're losing your sanity,  
> oh, calamity, is there no way out?  
> \- Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp


	4. Interlude: Savior - Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It should be noted that I have taken dialogue, and much of the premise of this side-story, from Transformers: Regeneration One. For those unfamiliar with it, some time ago the original Transformers comic ended, perhaps somewhat abruptly. I have not read the comic previous to issue 80 myself. The original team got the chance to finish off the series in the way they wanted, which was titled Regeneration One and published in four volumes.
> 
> Due to Perceptor’s statement that alternate timelines cannot exist due to time travel, but clearly alternate timelines can exist due to other factors (you’ll see, he’ll explain it), I did have to assert why there are multiple Rodimii at all, and well, the rest will be included in the story, so please enjoy!

_ Fuck me, Primus, I’m never going drinking with Megatron again.  _ Rodimus rubbed his face with his hands, feeling exhausted to his very Spark. The former Warlord had ordered engex directly from Swerve and the metallurgist had brought it to them, uncertainty written all over his face.

The challenge had been simple, disable inhibitor chips and drink to the last mech standing, but each drink had required a revelation of a personal nature. It had taken most of the evening before Megatron had fallen, laying in a puddle of his own engex-tainted drool, halfway through a line of his poetry -- it wasn’t  _ that  _ bad, just a little free-verse -- and leaving Rodimus to claim victory.

_ I’ll brag later, _ Rodimus thought muzzily, and opened his mirrored cabinet.  _ Once I’m sure Megatron doesn’t remember anything that I said. _

Supposedly, talking about your feelings was supposed to make you feel better. That’s how someone like Rung functioned, bringing feelings and fears to the fore. For many, like Skids or Red Alert, it was good for them, easing them back onto their preferred path. Megatron had confessed early on that he hated it, as much as he hated drinking poison, as much as he hated Starscream, as much as he hated being trapped and helpless.

_ It’s not like relieving pressure, _ Megatron had said, his fingers only barely steady.  _ It’s like stabbing a hole in yourself and watching your vital fluids leak out. You feel empty and drained. _

Empty and drained was precisely how Rodimus felt now. He stared at the tube of denta-paste for three seconds before he grabbed it, unscrewed the lid, and began applying it gently to his teeth.

_ Twice a day for the rest of you life,  _ Ratchet had ordered, back when Ratchet was still seeing him every day, back when he was Hot Rod and not Rodimus, back when he was still barely cool from the Well.  _ I’m not replacing these again. _

One of his earliest confessions, one of the ones that had seemed easier when he’d started speaking and harder when he finished, was that when Ratchet had left, he’d tried to eat an entire bag of candy and had spent the night-charge cycle of the  _ Lost Light  _ crying instead.

_ When people died, I was sad, but I didn’t cry. When Drift… left, it hurt and it was lonely, but I didn’t cry. When Ratchet finally had enough of me that he wrote me off, that hurt so much I didn’t think I would ever vent properly again.  _ Rodimus vented deeply, and finished applying the paste. He screwed the cap back on, and placed it back in the cabinet. Stared for three seconds at the lumpy, misshapen middle. Took the tube back out again and smoothed it out to look even and pristine.  _ There, Magnus, happy? _ Placed it back in the cabinet again and closed it.

Something stared back at him from the mirror. It was his face, but it wasn’t. There was different structure to it, the paint a shade or two darker, and the finials simpler, not wholly unlike what he’d looked like when he’d first been forged. More importantly, the face that was/wasn’t his looked terrified, scared, and alone.

Rodimus reached up, checking to see if his facial plates were so numb he couldn’t feel that. A hand came up, pressing against the surface of the mirror.

_ Help me,  _ the face in the mirror said.  _ Help me or all will be lost. _

Rodimus stared for a good two or three seconds more, then turned away from it.  _ Fuck it. I’m going to go ‘charge. _

~ * ~

The nightmare wasn’t like any of the other ones.

He’d had nightmares from nearly the moment the  _ Lost Light  _ had left Cybertron. Early ones had been about the Sparkeater, ripping and tearing its way through his loved ones, through his friends and crewmates until he was left alone, fleeing from a monster who had a thirst for his Spark. Later nightmares had involved accusations, failures on his part. An endless sea of doubt that he fought back against during waking hours by shoving all of his confidence to the fore. A few had been about enemies they’d faced: Overlord, Tyrest, Tarn.

The worst ones were about Megatron. Rodimus remembered being shot. He remembered Optimus being torn to pieces. He dreamed of worse, of reanimated versions of old, dead friends, Megatron goading them onwards. Of tearing the Autobrand from his chest and laughing as he was consumed by Decepticon purple once more.

It was hard to look him in the eye in the mornings after those nightmares, because the vision of it never quite faded. Those were the days Rodimus insisted on watching Velocity administer Megatron’s medication -- Megatron’s  _ poison  _ \-- before he would start a conversation.

This nightmare was new.

He was on a world, raw and new, surrounded by lava and twisting metal spires. The ground was a series of massive slabs of metal and stone, barely stable enough to walk on. A name whispered to him:  _ Cybertron.  _ As he walked, he felt like he was being watched, followed. Despite the fact there was nowhere to truly hide, a shadow lurked in the darkness between the points of light.

Rodimus’ hand itched for a weapon. It sprang. A sword appeared in his hand and without hesitation, Rodimus struck.

Impaled on the sword, right to the hilt, was himself. He recognized his own expression, shocked and hurt instead of smiling and confident. His paint was different, crimson trending towards maroon, with a distinctive rear spoiler sprouting from his back.

_ Help me,  _ the doppelganger pleased, coughing energon onto his arm as the dream faded.  _ Help us. _

Rodimus had seen enough human movies to know that humans woke from nightmares with a start, crying out in fear and pain. When he woke from this nightmare, he was still. As his optics snapped to life, and he stared up at the ceiling to his berthroom, his body felt paralyzed, still impaled, as though  _ he  _ were the one who’d been stabbed.

_ Help us,  _ the voice echoed in his mind.  _ Help  _ me.

~ * ~

“We’re marking a forty percent loss in productivity for certain mid-range crew members,” Magnus noted, pointing to one of the lines on the chart. “Assigned duties are being left by the wayside.”

“I’ve never been wholly clear why you force the crewmembers to work,” Megatron admitted, frowning at the line. “They’re warriors.”

“A certain percentage of them are not, actually,” Magnus said. “If you examine the crew manifest, a number of those aboard are in technicality civilians, or as much civilians as one can be. Tailgate and Swerve, as examples. Tailgate isn’t even large enough for standard-gauge weaponry and the less said about Swerve’s history with firearms, the better.”

“And yet, Cyclonus still…” Megatron mused, and glanced over at Rodimus. The young Prime was carving out symbols against the table, one slow line at a time. “You aren’t paying attention.”

“Magnus asks people to work because he thinks it’ll keep them out of trouble,” Rodimus replied. “A long time ago, people had value even if they couldn’t fight at all, before they grafted weapons to their bodies. Cyclonus and Tailgate have a connection because they’re both mechs out of time, trying to fit in. Midrange crew is probably bored. Can I go yet?”

Magnus and Megatron glanced at one another, speaking volumes with a raised brow and startled expressions. “The commanding officer meeting is still for twenty more ship-standard minutes.”

“Pretty sure they’re everyone’s minutes,” Rodimus said, his fingers still working. “Pretty sure minutes are minutes are minutes in time, ticking away, grains in the hourglass, chirps in the clock. Time exists whether we observe it or not but the universe doesn’t mark time, it just exists.”

“Rodimus,” Magnus said slowly. “Are you feeling well? Would you like to see a doctor? Velocity, or…”

“Rung?” Megatron supplied, helpfully. “I’ve been saying you should speak to him for some time.”

“Will it get me out of this meeting?” Rodimus looked up, optics dull. Both mechs looked dismayed, and Rodimus could see his own expression reflected back at him. He looked like scrap.

“I think, yes,” Magnus said. “Go, see Rung. Immediately.”

“Yeah,” Rodimus muttered, and stood, pushing away from the table.  _ Visages _ was quiet, too quiet for his taste, but it made a good place to hold meetings.  _ And a bad place to listen to yourself think. _  He stood and walked away.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Magnus said, barely waiting for Rodimus to exit the bar. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” Megatron admitted. “But if I had to guess… something significant.” The former Warlord tapped the table, and Magnus looked down at where Rodimus had been scraping his fingertips.

HELP MF

“Mff?” Magnus muttered. “What does that mean?”

“I suspect he wasn’t finished,” Megatron said, running his fingers over the graven letters. “And that it was going to say ‘HELP ME’.”

~ * ~

There is a choice. There is always a choice. Two paths, the path to knowledge and the path to glory. The nightmares have a different flavour now, a different tang on my tongue. Why do we even  _ have  _ tongues? There’s no requirement for it, other than--

Focus.  _ Focus. _

The dreams are cycling now, between being stabbed and a room. I can hear them coming for me, the enemy at the gates. Instead of looking towards that sound, I look towards the paths ahead. The sword and the disc. Glory and wisdom.

I know what’s coming. I grab the sword, and it fits in my hand as easily as though it were forged there. I turn to face the force waiting to fight me and the world changes.

Lava. Spires of twisted metal. It’s… is this Cybertron? How can it be Cybertron?

It comes for me, as it always does. I have the sword and I attack.

I die on the sword again.  _ Help me. Help us. You must understand-- _

~ * ~

Rodimus lay on his berth, staring up at the ceiling. He glanced briefly at his energy levels, made a face, then dismissed the notification. It was possible, just slightly, that he should have listened to Megatron.

_ As always proving that my life is just like one of those human three-ring circuses, Megatron is giving me good advice,  _ he thought bitterly.  _ I banished my best friend and he could be dead, hunted down by the DJD assuming they’ve figured out they killed the ‘wrong’ one, my old Caretaker hates me, half my crew hates me, but the Slagmaker is giving me advice and making kissy-optics with the ex-Enforcer of the bla bla who gives a fuck? _

Rodimus vented heavily, covering his face with his hands. Focus.  _ Focus. _ He was tired, so struts-deep tired. It had never been true that Cybertronians were tireless. It simply took longer to get there, longer to starve, longer to wear down.

_ No one is immortal,  _ he mused.  _ No one lives forever, but I should be way too young to be this tired. _

Rodimus let his hands drop to his sides, and the ceiling had changed. Sitting up with a start, he found himself in the room from his dream, and there they were: the sword and the disc. Glory or knowledge.

He could hear scratching at the door, scrabbling.  _ You have a choice… now take it. _

Rodimus considered. It wasn’t his strong point and he knew it, but few understood  _ why.  _ It wasn’t because he was stupid, it was because when offered two paths, the path of the thinker or the path of the doer, thinking had gotten people killed. It had led to the basest of betrayals. Thinking was the mistake, action was the answer.

Thinking had let Doubledealer in. Thinking had let Overlord in.

If he took the sword, he knew where it would lead. More sleeplessness, more death. More  _ repetition.  _ Boring. He hated being bored. The disc was new. New answers, new possibilities. New hope. The sword was certain, the disc anything but.

The scratching became louder, more insistent. Rodimus only had moments to do what the dream -- the  _ nightmare _ \-- wanted:  _ choose. _

Rodimus reached out, grabbing for the disc, and suddenly he was somewhere else entirely.

There was lava, again, but more land now. Whole walkways, whole… platforms where he could walk, but there was no need to search when the answer was right in front of him:

There were creatures, golden and metal, with faces that looked like no Cybertronian or organic he’d ever seen. The closest he’d seen were bovines, though the horns were too short. _Not grey enough to be Trolls either._ _Not that Trolls are real. Probably._

There were dozens of them, hundreds, scrabbling around what looked at first to be an oversized boulder, but the more Rodimus focused, the more he realized it was a  _ head _ \-- a statue’s head -- and the scrabbling, seemingly random, was a kind of primitive worship, of idolatry and abasement.

_ Is that… that can’t be. That’s a Cybertronian head. A standard one,  _ Rodimus thought. Carefully, he took a step forward. Information trickled into his mind.  _ Primitive Cybertronians, precursors to us-- wait no. That’s scrap. Literal bullshit. We know what primitive Cybertronians looked like. They were made of pulleys and gears. They were made of organic material, like the twisted metal trees on Cybertron right n-- _

As he watched, the head fell, crushing the golden creatures, obliterating some as others scattered. More information whispered to him:  _ Primus’ first test, his first effort. It failed, and Cybertron needed to be wiped clean. _

Rodimus’ hands clenched tightly as he watched, venting helplessly.  _ No, this can’t be true. Primus isn’t supposed to be a complete slag-aft. He’s supposed to be the protector, the Creator. Who are these things? What are they? Why wipe them out? Especially when, considering the nature of purges, this one is completely terrible. _

Metal scraped across stone, and Rodimus turned. One of the golden creatures, whatever they were, leaped at him. One moment, his hand was empty, grasping at nothing. In the next, the sword appeared in his hand and unthinkingly, he lashed out.

_ Now you see,  _ the creature said as it transformed once again into Rodimus’ doppelganger.  _ Now you understand why you must help. _

“I understand jack-fucking-squat!” Rodimus cried. “I haven’t understood a single thing since this started.”

_ Seek wisdom,  _ the doppelganger whispered as it died, and the dream ended.  _ Seek wisdom underground. _

“How am I supposed to seek anything underground?” Rodimus asked of his ceiling, though the flat, grey metal yielded no answers. “What the fuck is going on?”

As his voice echoed in the lonely darkness, something niggled at him. Something scraped at his awareness. He looked around, wary of another nightmare, and then it hit him:

_ Maybe I  _ should  _ listen to Megatron… because I think what I need is  _ professional  _ help. _

~ * ~

“Sit, please,” Rodimus said, smiling. “Thank you for coming, I understand it’s late.”

“It’s quite alright,” said the small, slender mech in front of him. “I’m happy to help, Captain. Please, tell me what it is that you need.”

“Igneous -- may I call you that?”

“Of course, Captain. I fear ‘Geologist Third Grade Iacon’ is somewhat unwieldy, especially now.” The smaller mech smiled, and Rodimus studied him for a moment. Igneous was primarily green, not the dull green of Hardhead or the clashingly bright green of Springer, but a shade that reminded Rodimus of freshly mown grass on Earth. Across his narrow chest was painted a pattern of hexes in medium brown, sand, and black outlined with white. He had neither wheels nor wings, because like some of the other crewmembers -- Perceptor and Rung, primarily -- he had a stationary alt mode. He had a handful of additional plugs along his shoulder, and a long, thin slot just below his Autobrand.

“Igneous it is, then.” Rodimus flashed him another smile. “But the geologist bit is the part I’m interested in.”

“Oh!” The small, green mech sat up with interest. “You need my expertise, of course.”

_ I should be asking some of the crew members to do more,  _ Rodimus thought, forcing his smile to stay in place.  _ Sure, the galaxy’s a dangerous place, but that doesn’t mean I should be ignoring my civilians. _ “Specifically, it has to do with Cybertron’s ancient history. Things buried, things forgotten.”

“Of course, there’s much beneath Cybertron.” Igneous placed his hand over his Spark. “I’m a seismograph in my alternate mode, and I’ve done extensive monitoring of geological movement beneath the surface, both before and after the… regeneration. While the  _ surface  _ had changed, very little about the deep earth has. In fact, in some cases, that makes it easier for me to study. Less machinery buzzing about.”

“Great, great… so, tell me about the precursors.”

“Well, when Cybertron was originally formed, much of the world was volcanically active. Eruptions, cooling, breaking, and subsequent eruptions created various landmasses. In time, life formed, different from how organic life was created: the mixture of obsidian, iron, copper, and diamond formed the first Cybertronians. Internally, they had the first simple machines, gears and pulleys, and a Spark centered within a diamond. Those who are religious believe this is the first work of Primus, while we’ve found very ancient remains indicating this was a more or less natural process.”

Rodimus’ Spark clenched. “Okay, great. What did they look like?”

“Groot,” Igneous said, and the young Prime’s optics flickered in confusion. “I apologize, I was taking part in movie night most recently, and we watched-- never mind. Let me print you a picture.”

“Print..?”

Igneous smiled slightly, and a series of lights flashed across his body and a grinding noise came from deep within. Rodimus cried out in worry, but Igneous waved him off. After a few moments, a thin, white sheet pushed its way from his chest, and fell into Igneous’ hands. “Yes, I have a printer. This is Groot, a fictional alien creature from a human movie. See how he appears to be largely organic? Our ancestors looked similar, but instead of bark and sap, they had iron struts with bronze plating, and obsidian surrounding diamond for the Spark chamber. They were forced to consume metal and stone to replenish their degrading systems. As time passed, the metals used to create Cybertronians became more sophisticated, and so did we.”

“So, Primus and Unicron, the Guiding Hand, the Knights… the Thirteen Primes..?”

“All theoretical and speculative. We do have evidence of some of it, of course. Galvatron, as an example, is a figure claiming to hail from the time of the Thirteen. We know that Patropolii and Matropolii left Cybertron to colonize other worlds as a part of a greater Pax Cybertronia. We believe the Guiding Hand existed, and that the Knights did, and that Primus did. You yourself have had religious experiences relating to the Matrix of Leadership and your designation as Prime.”

“Yeah…” Rodimus said. “About that. Hey, you said ‘people believe’. Does that mean you don’t believe the Knights exist? But you’re a part of Knights Quest.”

“I did not think belief was a strict requirement to go on ‘Knights Quest’,” Igneous said dryly, and Rodimus squirmed. “But if you wish to ask me such a question, I would like to ask one of you in return.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why am I _really_ here?”

Rodimus vented heavily. “Okay, so this is strictly private, but… I’ve been having these dreams. Nightmares. Visions. Whatever. I see things. One of the things I saw was that there were precursor Cybertronians that started to fight one another and then were wiped out by Primus, and we replaced them. I… wanted to know if they’re real, if we’ve been wiping people out since we started existing. If… if the Decepticons were right, and Primes are just evil, all the way back to Primus.”

“I see,” Igneous said slowly. “May I offer an opinion?”

“Sure, they’re like aft-holes, everyone’s got one.”

“Quaint, Captain.” Igneous frowned thoughtfully. “There is no evidence of such a thing. In this dream, were the creatures all dead?  Were you seeing remains?”

“No, it looked like Primus missed a bunch,” Rodimus replied. “They’re all underground, and at least one attacked me. Things got weird then, but I was asked for help.”

“If such were the case, we would have found them,” Igneous said. “I may be… ambivalent towards assertions regarding many of the other religious figures, but… I have always believed in Optimus Prime. I have always believed in a better tomorrow.”

“That’s why we’re doing what we do,” Rodimus said. “Seeing Cybertron… it wasn’t home any more. The people who came back weren’t the same people I fought beside. Things got worse, not better, after we left from what I saw. If Metroplex hadn’t agreed to make a new city…”

“That’s why I left,” Igneous said. “I didn’t join your voyage initially because I was eager to see the changes wrought by the planet’s rebirth. Instead, I saw… horror. Riots, burnings, murders. Madness. Death. Constant manipulation. In truth, it didn’t feel like home any more. I thought perhaps I could make a new home here, because even if the Knights of Cybertron are only a legend, even if there’s nothing to find, what you have built here is a  _ home.  _ You’ve built a community of people -- very different people, but people nonetheless -- who care for one another. That’s what matters most.”

“I’ve made mistakes,” Rodimus said. “I’ve been selfish. Immature. Stubborn. Vain. Jealous. I’m still a lot of those things, some of the time, but I’m trying to learn. I… Drift once told me that he thought  _ we  _ were the Knights. The creators of our own utopia. Maybe he was right. Maybe there’s no such thing as Cybertopia. No matter what else anyone thinks of me, I did want to help. I’ve only ever wanted to help. I’m just not sure what to do about these dreams. I’m so exhausted but I can’t recharge.”

“Well, if I may offer a bit of advice,” Igneous began and Rodimus waved for him to continue. “You said that you’re being asked for help in your dream, correct? Are the requests becoming more urgent?”

“It feels like it, yeah,” Rodimus said, and rubbed his hands along the back of his head, feeling the bumps and ridges there. “And I’ll have the same dream over and over. It only changed a little bit, but it comes back to the same thing at the end.”  _ It comes back to me dying. _

“Then my suggestion is… say yes,” Igneous said. “You want to help, so help.”

Rodimus stared at the smaller mech, silent as his mind worked.  _ That’s… that makes complete sense. Say yes, find out what’s really going on. Instead of just stabbing, I’ll ask questions. Knowledge instead of power. _

“If that will be all, I believe I still have some of my assigned work to do,” Igneous said. Rodimus nodded, and the geologist stood, brushing lightly at his printer. “There is one more thing I wish to add as well. Everyone has flaws. We are like raw, unforged metal in that way, or rocks freshly pulled from the deep earth. Those that are brittle break under strain. Those that can be flexible, that can weather the heat are forged into something far greater than what they were originally.”

“Yeah, and fire’s always been my thing.” Rodimus flexed his hands. “Thank you, Igneous. That was… actually really helpful. I’ll take your advice.”

“You’re most welcome, Captain. We’ll all be grateful to see you in top form again.” Igneous offered him a bow, hand over Spark -- and Autobrand -- and then departed, but not before throwing one final remark over his shoulder: “Sweet dreams.”

~ * ~

_ Sweet dreams,  _ Rodimus mused, staring at his berth with no small amount of apprehension.  _ What if this doesn’t work? What if my punishment for not being as good as Optimus is never being able to recharge again? _

[Rodimus, what’s going on?] Magnus demanded in his left audial. [I hear something about you calling someone into your quarters for a meeting. Is this related to your latest episode?]

[When I said you needed to seek professional help, I didn’t mean someone who studies rocks,] Megatron noted dryly in his right. [You’re distressing Magnus.]

_ Of course it’s  _ Magnus  _ I’m distressing,  _ Rodimus thought sarcastically, and broadcast to both of them at once. “Shh. Now time is nap time. I’ll talk to you both later.”

Before either mech could protest, Rodimus disabled his audio receptors, leaving them both to lecture into the void. Without further hesitation, he climbed into his berth and lay on his back, shuttering his optics.

Almost immediately, the dream began again. Rodimus let it play out with impatience, though now he noticed new things: the ground he walked on wasn’t just metal or stone, but cooled magma, the obsidian that Igneous had mentioned. The spires he could see were in fact metallic trees made of twisted copper, iron, and other metals. They didn’t appear to move, however, and Rodimus wondered at the sight.

All too quickly, he was attacked, and he studied the creature. Definitely golden. Definitely horned. Red eyes and sharp, pointed mouth.  _ Nothing like the ‘Groot’ creatures that we really evolved from. I really do hope Igneous is right. _ “Stop!” he cried. “I want to help!”

The creature hissed at him like water hitting its boiling point, and the sword appeared in his hand. It was second nature to stab the creature and see his own face staring back.

_ Help me,  _ he/it whispered.  _ Help us. _

“I want to help,” Rodimus replied. “I want to help you, however many people that is. Show me what to do.”

The world dissolved around him and he was alone.  _ I didn’t wake up, that’s the good news. The bad news is, I think I’ve seen this before. _

Behind him, he could hear the sounds of scraping and scrabbling, and in front of him, the disc and the sword. Without hesitating, he put his hand on the disc. This time, when the vision cleared, he stood before a massive door, a face carved into the metal three times his height. The door felt familiar, as did the face.

_ Is that… is that Primus? _ Rodimus took a step forward, holding a hand out.

_ This is… this is the Primus chamber!  _ exclaimed a voice that was and was-not his.  _ I’ve been here before. And yet… I haven’t. This is  _ so _ weird. _

“You’re telling me,” Rodimus muttered. “You’re right, though. I’ve been here before, and yet I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s weird.”

_ Hot Rod,  _ a voice whispered, before ‘he’ continued.  _ It’s like an out-of-body experience… I can see…  _ me.  _ Reflected into infinity. _

As the words were spoken, Rodimus could see what his doppelganger was talking about: the Chamber disappeared, and in its place he could see  _ himself.  _ Each was standing in the same location, but every one was different. He could see other versions of himself without missile launchers, with his old design, with different colours. Two were a dark purple instead of a bright red. One resembled his old friend Hot Shot, though with his own colouring instead of the mostly yellow the freedom fighter had been forged with. Different flame designs, different shades of red, different loadouts.

All of them, he had no doubt, were once or currently known as  _ Hot Rod. _

“What do we do?” Rodimus demanded. “You said you needed help, so let us help.”

_ Danger right now, but I’ll contact you,  _ the doppelganger -- the original? -- said.  _ Be ready to travel to the Spark of this matter. _


	5. Interlude: Savior - Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have trashy taste in music, and so does Rodimus.  
> Song Lyrics:  
> My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark (Light 'Em Up) - Fall Out Boy  
> Mentioned:  
> Original Fire - Audioslave

“Alright, so just to be clear, I thought time travel didn’t create alternate timelines,” Rodimus said. “I thought we decided that was completely bogus science stuff that eliminated consequence from the act of time travel.”

“You’re correct,” Perceptor said. “Also, get off my desk. I was using it.”

Rodimus stood, and paced to a wall, leaned against it for three seconds, then got up to move to the other wall. “So alternate realities don’t exist? We’ve just got the one?”

“Well… no, not entirely,” Perceptor said slowly, and rubbed the lens over his right optic. “I said  _ time travel  _ doesn’t create them. It’s possible, on a purely theoretical level, other timelines exist in which decisions were made or not made that can change things entirely. Imagine, if you would, a terrarium. You take the same essential components -- soil, organic plant life, water -- and place them in different terrariums, identical in nature but separate and distinct in location. You move one of them into darkness, another into a location that is hot, another that is cold, and you leave several in exactly the same location. What would you have?”

“Well… some of them would probably die,” Rodimus said slowly. “Others might adapt and flourish. The ones that were left in the same place would probably be about the same.”

“Exactly,” Perceptor said. “It’s easy to see how things can be different when there are radical changes. It’s those subtle ones that can be interesting. What if, through no fault of anyone’s, some of the seeds aren’t as potent as the others? What if others overwhelm them? What if a single thing, a piece of metal, is introduced? What if plastic is, or a mineral? We can’t create new realities via time travel because that’s the same as deciding to plant different seeds in an existing terrarium. But each terrarium has its own destiny. Do you see?”

“I think I do,” Rodimus said slowly. “Thanks, Percy.”

“Hmph,” the scientist-turned-sniper replied, but a faint hint of pleasure moved through his fields. “Any time, Captain.”

“Hey,” Rodimus said, after a moment. “Do you believe?”

“In?” Perceptor queried. Rodimus pushed off from the wall again and paced.

“Primus. The Guiding Hand. The Afterspark. The Knights. Anything.”

Perceptor vented slightly. “I believe in the Autobot mission to preserve life and overcome violence and slavery. I believe in a better tomorrow. I believe in Optimus Prime. I believe in my friends and my crewmates.”

“Do you believe in me?” Rodimus asked, suddenly. “Do you believe I can make a difference?”

Perceptor was quiet for a moment, and then nodded, once. “We have gone through much, Rodimus. Many trials, many tribulations. It isn’t over, and there will be a great deal of work to be done for a long time.”

“I didn’t exile Drift because I hated him,” the young Prime said in a rush. “I did it because he asked me to. He was trying to protect me, protect the mission. It didn’t work, everything went to Junkion anyway, but he tried.”

“Which explains the difference in your behaviour regarding Drift and Brainstorm,” Perceptor said. “Why tell me now?”

“Because--”  _ Because I don’t know if I’ll come back. Because I want someone to know in case Ratchet brings Drift back and I’m not here to see it.  _ “--I don’t want people to have the wrong idea. About him. About me.”

“I understand.” Perceptor said. “Thank you for telling me.”

“You’re… welcome,” Rodimus said. “I’ve gotta go, something big’s coming and I can’t miss it.”

“Of course, Captain. Until next time.”

Rodimus nodded to him, and walked out of Perceptor’s office. He could feel people all around him, people he knew. People he cherished. He’d lost too many already. He remembered the abject lesson of Rewind’s recordings from the other  _ Lost Light,  _ the one where he’d died the  _ first  _ time he’d made a mistake, where they’d lost different people and then everyone.

_ Once you were dead, Drift didn’t feel beholden to keep your secret any more. That’s when someone alerted the DJD to Overlord’s location -- his real location -- and then… everything went to scrap. _

“If this is going to blow up in my face,” Rodimus muttered to himself, “I should do it where I can’t hurt anyone else.”

“Always a smart choice,” Whirl commented as he walked past. “Unless you  _ want  _ to hurt people. In that case, it’s demolitions.”

“Thanks,” Rodimus said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”  _ Definitely don’t want to hurt people, but should I go somewhere else? Where-- _

[Captain!] chirped a voice in his comm. [It’s Nautica. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve finished my adjustments to the Rodpod. It just needs testing.]

_ Perfect,  _ Rodimus thought, smiling to himself.  _ Trust Nautica to be completely reliable in a time of crisis.  _ [Great, Naut. I want to test it out, can I take care of that now?]

[Not… gr-- Oh! You mean like short for Nautica. That’s a lot better than Naughty, I suppose,] she mused into the comm. [Yes, you’re welcome to come by. Skids and Stormy are coming by to retrieve me later.]

[Stormy, huh?] Rodimus said as he headed towards the shuttle bays. [You two close?]

[We three, but yes,] Nautica replied, the happiness in her voice shining through the comm. [Thick as thieves as the saying goes. He’s not in trouble again, is he? I still have my wrench button.]

[He’s not in trouble so long as you’re keeping an eye on him,] Rodimus said, and guilt twitched across his Spark. [I’m glad for you all, though. I’m really glad.]

[Thank you, Captain. I’ll see you soon.]

_ Camiens are awesome,  _ Rodimus reflected on the way over.  _ Even ones that accidentally bring charisma-eating parasites onboard. Shame I didn’t get to talk to Firestar more. She seemed hot. _

~ * ~

Rodimus was still grinning at his own cleverness by the time he arrived at the shuttlebay. Nautica had since cleared out, undoubtedly to spend time with her friends, leaving him to admire his shuttle alone: the Rodpod was what most people called a ‘vanity project’ and what he called ‘plan B’. It had saved lives twice already, first those who had survived the quantum phenomenon that had produced two  _ Lost Lights  _ \-- and only one Rodpod between them, considering his other-self’s early death -- and as a submersible vehicle that helped saved Metroplex, and all Cybertron.

In some ways, the Rodpod was more heroic than he was, but he couldn’t resent those who chose to use it.  _ Design aside, there’s a reason I wanted a shuttle this tricked out and useful, and it all comes back to the past. _

More than once, Rodimus had been stranded on planets, unable to escape and at the mercy of others, but the worst time had been on Earth -- and considering the second worst time had involved being used as an engine, it was saying something -- when he’d teamed up with Swindle and both Autobots and Decepticons had tried building a ship together.

_ 'The war is over, there’s no point in fighting,’  _ Rodimus thought, running his hands along the side of his ship. ‘ _ None of us want to be here, let’s just leave.’ It’s never that simple, or that easy. _

In the end, it had been Magnus’ ship that he’d stolen, stranding the Enforcer on Earth while he pursued the Matrix. If he’d told anyone his plan, they’d have talked him out of it, but the Autobots needed the Matrix, needed the  _ Prime.  _ He’d accepted that, ultimately, he wasn’t ready to be  _ the  _ Prime, and being  _ a  _ Prime would do.  _ And even that’s not entirely true. _

[Rodimus, what’s going on?] Megatron demanded. [I’m not unaware of some of your difficulties, but this is getting ridiculous. You need to come to the bridge and--]

_ Sometimes, you need to have a plan in case everything goes to scrap,  _ Rodimus thought, and entered the Rodpod. He took a moment to get comfortable in the primary seat, wiggling his aft until it sat just right.  _ Sometimes, you just need to take care of things yourself. _

He flicked a series of switches, and the engines responded with alacrity. He grinned to himself.

[Rodimus! Answer me, damn it!]

“Sorry, Megs,” Rodimus said breezily. “After all this excitement, I’ve decided I need a little vacation. I’m going meteor surfing and taking the Rodpod. I’ll be back in a few days, probably. Be good and don’t wait up.” He switched frequencies. “Mainframe, open the shuttlebay doors, one to take off.”

[Captain,] came the reply, and moments later, Rod and Pod were streaking across space.

Rodimus studied his controls and the nearby stellar map. If he backtracked, he knew where he could go that was safe. Blue optics darted across the charts as he plotted in a course, unconcerned about his cover story being anything more than a transparent one.

_ Megatron and Magnus will just think I’m slacking, most of the crew won’t notice or care, and I’ll be back soon enough. If worst comes to worst, the Rodpod has a beacon, they’ll find me. _ Rodimus’ thumb brushed over his palm, where the numbers used to be. He shook his head slightly and continued.  _ There, Beta-X311479. No inhabitants, no trouble, just a barren lump barely worth the trip down. That’s my rock. _

There had been no further messages from the  _ Lost Light,  _ and either Magnus had taken his second-hand word for it, or he hadn’t been concerned. Either way, there was silence and it itched at him as it always did. Briefly, he flipped through the music he’d been given by Swerve for just such occasions.

_ “Light ‘em up, up up, _

_ Light ‘em up, up, up, _

_ Light ‘em up, up, up, _

_ I’m on fire!” _

“My songs know what you did in the da-a-a-ark,” Rodimus sang along with the next line, and let warmth course through him. He hadn’t managed to get it to work many times in the past, but if anything could convince his fields to manifest flames, it was going to be something that got his energon pumping.

The flight was not one of silence, or calm. Instead Rodimus listened to all the music he could, letting it fill his mind. He was exhausted, stasis nipping at the edges of his vision, dark spots encroaching where none should be. Sound, glorious sound, would push it back and keep him away until landing.

By the time the planet came into view, the last strains of  _ Original Fire _ were fading, and he turned the music off. He piloted the Rodpod downwards, letting it come to rest under the shelter of some rocks. There was no wind here, no atmosphere to speak of. Nothing but desolation and dreams.

Rodimus turned off the ship, leaving only the basic systems running, more for the ship’s sake than his own. He could survive without air, without energon -- he had some high-grade in here somewhere, and now his inhibitor chip was activated -- and without people.

He tilted his chair back, and offlined his optics. As stasis stole over him, his mind offered him one more helpful question:

_ What happens if I don’t wake up? _

~ * ~

He found himself back in the Primus Chamber, familiar and yet alien at once. He wasn’t alone, though his other selves were nowhere to be seen. Instead, he saw the familiar/different faces of the Dinobots, staring at something in fear and wonder.

_ It’s not like the Dinos are known for their cowardice, but what--  _ Rodimus turned, and his optics widened. There, big as life and twice as real, stood Optimus Prime. The last time they had spoken -- well, Rodimus had yelled, Optimus had dictated -- things had not been friendly. He licked his lips and said--

“Primus, but-- How? We saw you destroyed by Unicron!”

“So limited in your perception,” Optimus said haltingly, in a voice that was not his own. “Did ‘I’ not open your eyes? ‘I’ am. There is no one. ‘I’ exist across space and time, omnipresent.”

_ What the fuck?  _ Rodimus wondered, even as he realized that Optimus was not the true face of the being that spoke.  _ They must be seeing someone different, someone important to them, just like I am. This is so weird. Also, since when was Primus destroyed by Unicron? Is this more terrarium scrap? _

“This body,” Primus continued, “saved, plucked from the abyss, strong enough to house a fraction of ‘I’.”

He could feel himself be frightened, confused, and overwhelmed, mingling with his own reactions. Someone had died for Primus to manifest, and it was terrifying to think it could be Optimus.  _ We need him. No matter what he thinks, we need him and we always will. _

He opened his mouth to ask a question, and a voice that was his, and yet wasn’t, answered: “I don’t-- help me out here! I’m just--”

_ Shut up, we were chosen by the Matrix,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ We are-- _

“No,” Primus intoned, pointing at him -- them. “Not ‘just’. More. You are chosen. You are  _ Prime. _ ”

Rodimus’ chest flooded with warmth, even as he felt his other-self’s confusion. He could still remember when the Matrix had chosen him, how perfect it had felt, moments before he’d nearly died. He remembered Optimus asking the question, and the look on his face that the older Prime couldn’t quite conceal.  _ I still wonder about that. Why he asked, what it meant. _

“Tick-tock,” Primus said. “Body cannot hold even this amount of ‘I’ for long. You must understand, diagnose, the disease that eats at  _ the totality. _ The plan is threatened, and you have not  _ become,  _ and so you must go.”

“Go?” Rodimus and his other self asked as one. “Go  _ where?” _

“Into the heart of ‘I’,” Primus proclaimed, raising his hand to create a swirling vortex just behind him/them. Even now, Rodimus could see where the guise was peeling away, smoking metal and hissing energon. “Into zero.”

“Wh--ooooooh!” they cried as one as the fell into.

...the…

...zero..

...space.

Senses in freefall… everything in flux… out of space and time.

_ Darkness. _

~ * ~

_ Light. Sound. Explosions? _

Rodimus activated his optics, expecting to see the familiar curves of the Rodpod. Instead, he awoke in a battleground. A mech was blasted backwards, struck in the chest by blaster fire. He could hear glass shattering, and screams pierced the air.

_ Where the fuck-- is this Earth? This has to be Earth, but this never… _

Information flew at him, indicating the location was Denver, Colorado, United States of America, North America, Earth. He’d been to Earth, driven along its dirt-covered roads, felt its sun warmed particle-filled air and heard the crunching of tiny stones under his tires. He’d fought there, been trapped there. Nearly died there.

He couldn’t recall a battle like this.

Above them was a towering black mech, beams firing from both palms and seeming to shrug off the return fire. Rodimus could see people who were familiar and yet alien -- Siren, Getaway, Nightbeat -- and of course, Optimus Prime himself.

Rodimus stared up at the sight wordlessly. He -- they -- provided an answer, a Deathbringer.

_ Great,  _ Rodimus thought sourly.  _ What’s a Deathbringer? More Phase Sixer scrap? Another secret weapon I get to be mad at Megatron about? _

“Prime-- do something!” cried out one of the mechs, cloaked in fire and shadow. “Before it kills us all!”

“Do what, Getaway?” Optimus replied, and Rodimus glared at the blocky, mostly unfamiliar mech. “Destroy it? How  _ can  _ I when its power is the power of the  _ Creation Matrix! _ ”

_ It.... it can’t be one of  _ ours, Rodimus thought frantically, even as doubt trickled into his thoughts.  _ Who knows what Prowl gets up to? Tyrest, the old Institute, all the people who’ve ever worn the Autobrand… _

More information trickled into Rodimus’ mind, memories that weren’t his, stories that belonged to someone else: a Deathbringer is one who brings swift death to terminal cases --  _ what if we’d had that for Tailgate? He would have died and no one would have saved him, not even the Miracle Moon _ \-- and after a time, they had grown to enjoy killing more than preserving life.

_ Great,  _ Rodimus thought, watching as Optimus and the others poured on their fire.  _ So he’s like the Necrobot, if instead of recording the dead, Censere made sure they wound up that way. What did humans call them? Angels of mercy. _

The Deathbringer laughed, continuing to fire, creating terminal cases where none were to be found. _ This here, if I’m reading what Primus said right... is part of whatever’s clogging up the works turning the ‘grand plan’ into a total, future-imploding trainwreck! _

The words, whispered by Rodimus’ doppelganger, echoed in his mind. Awareness of his other selves crowded around him for a moment, all asking questions. There was plenty of confusion, and Rodimus could only add to it.

_ These things don’t exist in my reality,  _ was Rodimus’ contribution.  _ The closest thing we have is a mech that teleports around counting the dead, and a group of torturers and aft-holes that like to pretend they’re all about justice. _

“I must continue my prime directive,” the Deathbringer crowed. “Purge…  _ Purge!” _

More information trickled into his mind, and he did his best to focus: the Deathbringer had nearly died. It had been old, saved from death by the Matrix itself. Remade, repurposed, it had learned to kill, and more, to like it.

_ That doesn’t make sense,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ The Matrix isn’t evil. Sure, Nova was evil, but Nova was also fake. Faker than Getaway and Tailgate’s relationship. People used the Matrix as an excuse, but other people held onto the Matrix without being evil, like Thunderclash and… probably me. Good odds, me. _

‘Any moment now, Optimus will give up his only chance of finding the Matrix and hit the Deathbringer with everything he’s got.’

_ That’s not surprising, Optimus is like that,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ But did something happen to the Matrix? This is a weird, fucked up terrarium. I wish someone else was here to see this other than… me. _

He watched as the familiar-yet-alien Autobots fired, filling the sky with brilliance as they fought what looked like, even to him, a pointless battle. More mechs fell, and Rodimus watched those that fought, despair digging deeply into his Spark.  _ It’s just as bad as watching people fall out of the  _ Lost Light,  _ or any of the other stupid ways I’ve fucked up. _

Nightbeat’s familiar gold and blue flashed through the crowd as he hunched down over a communications panel, and Rodimus dragged his gaze from the sky. This Nightbeat seemed very much like the one he knew, both in form and in function: he was trying to solve a mystery in the middle of a firefight.

“Waverider, I need everything we have on Deathbringers,” Nightbeat murmured into the device. “No rush, but we’re dying.”

Rodimus couldn’t hear what was being said, instead watching Nightbeat’s expression. The investigator was Spark-skippingly brilliant, and his fields buzzed with activity as he put pieces together in nano-seconds, standing up only moments after he’d sat down.

_ We were very, very lucky when it turned out Nightbeat wasn’t dead, and we managed to free him from Nova. I wonder if this Nightbeat ever went through that? _

“Prime, I know what to do,” Nightbeat called, hurrying over to Optimus. “Cease fire!”

A ripple of disbelief went up among the defenders as the Autobot leader repeated the order, and they ran to cover, protecting themselves. Optimus bent so Nightbeat could speak directly into his audial, nodding after a few moments.

“Deathbringer!” Optimus called out, and for a moment, the creature turned and regarded him. Without facial features aside from a single reversed, glowing chevron, it was hard to tell what it was thinking, but every moment it wasn’t firing meant that Autobots were surviving. “You are  _ dying;  _ slowly, painfully being eaten away by energy you can no longer contain.” There was, as far as Rodimus could tell, a hint of regret.

The Deathbringer considered, pulsing with sickly green swirls. “Y-y-yes. This  _ diseased  _ body must be put out of its miser--” Energy flared up, building until it exploded outwards, smashing buildings and slicing through the ground. “--eeeee.”

“Holy fuck,” Rodimus commented aloud, though none of those present seemed to hear him. “I thought ‘talking someone to death’ was a fake thing, or at the very least, a Tarn thing.”

Rodimus watched the clean up -- collecting fallen Autobots, medics rushing from body to body, desperate for signs of a Spark-pulse, quiet words exchanged between Optimus and his officers -- until, one by one, the Autobots transformed and rolled out.

_ Alright, so… now what?  _ he asked his other selves.  _ We just sit around watching hydrogen bond? _

‘Something like that,’ one of the doppelgangers replied. ‘I remember learning about thermodynamics.’

_ I remember learning I could fit my whole fist in my mouth,  _ Rodimus admitted.  _ Which is more useful than you think, especially when-- _

‘Please, no,’ replied another one of the doppelgangers. ‘I’d rather watch that grease coalesce.’

_ Rude,  _ Rodimus noted.  _ Rude to yourself, even. Besides, what grease, I don’t see-- _ Rodimus made a show of looking down at the ground, noting one of the long gouges seemed to remain dark, even as the light came and went, time passing unnaturally quickly. Slowly, he made his way over and squatted down, poking his finger into the darkness.

‘Energy can never be destroyed, only… transformed.’

The darkness lurched upwards, and Rodimus fell back on his aft, scrambling backwards as it rose from the dirt, leaving it smooth and untouched. Above him it loomed, stretched impossibly thin with a jaw that distended the whole length of its body, a pair of horns curving out from a barely formed head, but the core remained, glowing with a sickly green light, reminiscent of the Deathbringer’s fields before its explosion.

_ What the fuck?  _ Rodimus wondered, and this time, his other selves had no objection.  _ What the entire fuck? _

Memories flashed through his mind, of Optimus finally finding the Matrix, purging it of evil…  _ but not all. Never all of it, because one of the pieces was left on a planet that didn’t want us any more. _

‘Some kind of anti-Matrix,’ echoed in Rodimus’ mind. ‘And it’s out there, somewhere.’

_ Hands up whoever thinks it’s going to show up at the worst possible moment and fuck everything up for people.  _ Rodimus raised both hands.  _ Yeah, so we’re going to need to find--  _ The world slid sideways, and he cried out,  _ \--iiiiit! _

~ * ~

Cybertron had been, for a very long time, beautiful, even in alternate timelines. Rodimus had had the chance to go back in his own Cybertron’s history, to the time when the Functionist Council still dominated and Megatron and Orion Pax both had developed, growing together and then ripping apart. This Cybertron seemed different, and much, much older.

The attention of the Rodimii was focused on this place, and Rodimus watched as a gaudy flyer zoomed along the ground path --  _ why would they..? -- _ to transform at a door guarded by what he could only describe as golden golems.

“Tribune Jhiaxus,” the mech said, announcing himself. “Boltax is expecting me.”

There was a jumble of confusion within his thoughts, and Rodimus pressed his hands to his audials at the buzz.  _ Okay, okay. Be cool, everyone. I know Jhiaxus. He taught Shockwave, and later was his minion. He was part of a conspiracy to create and grow thirteen magical Ores, one of which was planted on Earth. I don’t know Boltax from Atomizer. _

_ ‘Boltax.  _ That name I know,’ replied one of the others. ‘But Jhiaxus..? Nothing. Nada. A great big black hole. Almost…  _ conspicuously  _ absent.’

‘Someone scrubbed him?’ another asked. ‘Like Terminus?’

_ Or he erased himself,  _ Rodimus pointed out.  _ Terminus got erased because he warned Megatron not to get attached. He told me about it. _

‘Do you often have personal conversations with the Slagmaker?’ the second Rodimus asked. ‘Or is your reality really weird?’

_ Yeah, it’s hella weird,  _ Rodimus admitted.  _ Megatron is strangely vulnerable when you get past the millions of years of genocide and up close and personal violence. _

‘Shh, listen,’ a third Rodimus urged. ‘We’re missing it.’

Rodimus followed Jhiaxus inside. Within were four other mechs. One was identical to the golden golems, though seemed to stand taller and straighter, exuding an air of being intellectually superior and cloyingly smug at the same time. The other three mechs had similar designs, mixing and matching blue, red, silver, and black. Even their helmet designs seemed to be iterations on the same. The front portions of their helms were open, exposing the surface of their positronic brains to the air.

Rodimus swallowed hard, by reflex.

“--beginning to think you weren’t coming,” said the gold golem, Boltax. He stood before what, to Rodimus’ optics, looked to be a giant, sparkling green egg. It was unlike any Cybertronian structure he’d seen before, largely by virtue of there being no egg-laying Cybertronians.

‘Then how do you know it’s an egg?’ asked a Rodimus.

‘Browsing the human internet,’ was the reply from another. ‘How else?’

‘Quiet,’ said a third. ‘Watch, listen, learn.’

_ You should know we find all of those things really boring, _ Rodimus pointed out, but did anyway.

“O’ ye of little faith,” Jhiaxus was saying. “This… unorthodox  _ meeting of minds  _ would have been infinitely poorer for my absence, don’t you agree? Hardly worth having at all!”

“You always did have an inflated opinion of yourself, Jhiaxus,” said the blue and silver mech sourly.

“With due cause, Decanus,” Jhiaxus replied breezily, and moved up towards the egg, exposing his own brain module. “With due cause.”

“Enough,” snapped Boltax. “You are here. You understand.” The golden mech turned to the egg, and Rodimus could see there was a wire attachment, not unlike a grasping hand that sprouted from the structure not far from where the golden mech was standing. As though sensing the synaptic activity of a functioning Cybertronian mind, it reached out and grasped for him, attaching itself easily. Jhiaxus and Decanus, as well as the other two mechs, were not far behind.

_ That’s fucked up and weird, but if we actually had something like this… it’d be like having five Rewinds, or five Brainstorms-- you know what? Probably why it’s a bad idea, right there. _

“--that true growth is internalized, and lies in the pooling of knowledge; a protected  _ brain trust  _ comprised of the five greatest minds on the planet.”

‘Isn’t that the exact opposite? Internalizing means keeping everything inside, but pooling is collectivism.’

_ What? _

‘I learned it from Rung. He said--’

_ I’m not going to therapy by proxy, just shh. _

“Welcome, esteemed colleagues, to the  _ Underbase,” _ Boltax said, his voice filling Rodimus’ mind as the view shifted into something entirely new.

The Underbase, if that was what this could be called, was a riot of colour: nothing so organized as a rainbow, and no darkness to give it the stylings of an oil slick, instead there was pink and blue splashed across the infinity, interspersed with orange and yellow around small, dark clusters while ribbon-bands of purple shot through a cluster of green globes, attached to one another like some kind of giant synaptic construct.

It was breathtaking and, at the same time, so deeply wrong it shook Rodimus through multiple cores.

“What is…  _ this?”  _ demanded the silver and red mech.

“Yes,” said Decanus. “This is not how the cyber-ocean manifested itself on previous voyages.”

“Do you like it?” Jhiaxus asked, gleeful. “It’s  _ mine.” _

“What have you done, Jhiaxus?” asked the silver and red mech. “Why have you brought us here?”

_ Fucked up bondage porn? _ Rodimus guessed.  _ Because he’s a creepy, torturing fuck that hurt a lot of people, but especially Arcee? _

“Why…” the gold and red mech smirked, and spun, creating a weapon out of the mind-stuff to stab his questioner in the Spark chamber. “To  _ kill  _ you, of course. In a manner of speaking.”

_ Fuck!  _ Rodimus cried, reaching out to grasp at nothing.  _ You piece of scrap! _


	6. Interlude: Saviour - Part III

**** Staring helplessly, Rodimus felt his vision shift. Outside the chamber, he saw the red and silver mech fall, and a moment’s glance revealed they were alive but stunned as the synapse claw abruptly released them.

“What is the meaning of this  _ outrage?” _ demanded the silver and blue mech. Jhiaxus turned his gaze, contemptuous, towards him and raised his other arm, firing a wrist-mounted blaster. “Sto--paaaargh!”

“Did you truly expect me to meekly bow my head and allow you to bottle my boundless intellect?” the ancient scientist demanded. “In the name of…  _ what?  _ Keeping Cybertron isolated, insulated, a dusty testament to cerebral vanity; an insignificant  _ island  _ of order in a sea of chaos?”

_ If he weren’t in the process of shooting people in the brain module, I might sympathize,  _ Rodimus thought, watching as Jhiaxus attacked Decanus, reaching out uselessly as the blue and silver mech fell out of the mindscape. The red, blue, and silver mech was next, leaving only Boltax.

“No,” Jhiaxus continued, oblivious to his witnesses. “I am going to  _ mine  _ this database for what I need to create a  _ cosmic  _ empire and then subtract me from your memories -- and  _ all  _ records -- entirely.” The ancient scientist grasped Boltax by his head, delivering the last part of his speech with an intensity that bordered on intimacy. “Farewell, Boltax. Trouble with this endless intellectualizing is eventually--” His fingers squeezed, digging into gold metal. “--it goes to your  _ head.” _

_ Okay, ew,  _ Rodimus thought as Boltax’s skull module and brain disintegrated, leaving him as limp and unresponsive in the outside world as all the rest. A cursory look showed that while still, none of the mechs were dead.  _...And when they wake up, they won’t even know what they’re missing. That’s spooky. Also creepy. _

Jhiaxus extracted himself from the mindscape easily, stealing everything his former comrades had known eagerly and without remorse. Then he was gone, as though he’d never been there to begin with.

‘How much damage could he have done in that time?’ one of the Rodimii wondered, and Rodimus realized it was the inviting presence, the one that had alerted him in the first place. He was beginning to recognize the different selves that stood within and beside him, and that one felt young and lost. ‘How much?’

_ Probably a lot, ours did,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ Fucking with organics and torturing someone I… I don’t think I could ever exactly call her a friend, but someone who definitely deserved better. He was working on the Dead Universe with Nova. _

‘What’s a “dead universe”?’ one of the others asked, this one sounding powerful, likely the multi-axeled Prime.

_ Pretty much, like a living universe except deader. When I went there it tried to kill us. We had to protect ourselves using dead things that had come from there, like a human vaccine. Apparently, the dead universe had all the energy of a living one. Shockwave was going to use it, and all his fancy ores, to collapse all of time and space into one another, like a kind of universal hot pocket. He technically succeeded, though he didn’t get our universe, just that one. _

‘That sounds very farfetched, but alright,’ said the multi-wheeled Rodimus. ‘So, how did you escape?’

_ Pretty much, Nova mind-fucked Nightbeat, who is smart and awesome in every timeline, and Hardhead had to shoot him. We thought he died but it turned out, he was sort-of alive in the Dead Universe. Nova was still controlling him, but we saved him through the power of puzzle solving, then we beat up Nova and used his corpse as a door, then we followed the sound of people singing. Optimus and Megatron teamed up on Shockwave with friendship speeches, and it undid millions of years of Empurata but not the evil scheme, so Shockwave shut the whole thing down. _

‘Universal hot pocket?’

_ Universal hot pocket,  _ Rodimus agreed.  _ Brainstorm saved all of us from being murdered by the not-dead universe because we were infected by the dead one. Nothing like foiling millions of years of scheming with a number problem. _

‘Oh?’’ asked one of the other Rodimii, curious. ‘What kind of number problem?'

_ Yeah,  _ Rodimus said as the timeline pulled them to a different time and place.  _ What it looks like when you fuck up so badly that almost half of the people you thought of as friends want you gone. _

~ * ~

They were on Earth again, but it was an Earth Rodimus didn’t recognize: following a yellow-haired male-frame human and an orange-haired female-frame human as they fled from yet another Decepticon-perpetrated massacre. He looked away from the explosions, from the cutting lasers and the familiar-yet-alien faces.

_ I don’t know why I’m here,  _ he thought, angry and frustrated.  _ I thought the visions meant I could be making a difference, not watching scenes from places I’ve never been, watching people I’ve never known die. It’s about as useful as staring at your own corpse and asking for-- _

“We’ll make it. Us Witwickys always do… and hey, that includes you… now--” The male-frame human cut off, staring into the distance.

_ Witwicky?  _ Rodimus thought, his attention snapping to the humans.  _ Like Spike Witwicky? No, it can’t be, he’s got yellow hair, and Spike had brown hair. _

“What is it?  _ Buster?” _

_ Isn’t that Thundercracker’s dog?  _ Rodimus mused.  _ I heard something about it when I was back on Cybertron, but-- _

A line of fire and light struck the packed highway, less than a dozen cars away from the humans, annihilating a big rig truck that could have, in a different time and place, been Optimus himself. The screams that erupted were distant and faint, as though they didn’t matter.

The Rodimii clamoured, insistent on doing something. Rodimus felt his own internals twist.

_ I hate it too, but this is a vision,  _ he said to the others.  _ We can’t change it, and even if we could, we’d rewrite history. I’ve messed with it once, you have to be careful with it. Just because we’re all sharing a terrarium right now doesn’t mean we can upend it. _

Silence met him as Buster Witwicky declared he was going off-road and yanked his steering wheel to the right, sailing off of the highway.

‘Was… was that supposed to make sense?’ one of the Rodimii ventured, and Rodimus vented.

_ Just watch, okay? We’re all stuck here anyway until we figure out what Primus wants with us. _

‘Time…’ the young Rodimus mused. ‘Okay, so I know where, and now when. The end of the world.’ Rodimus watched as the blue car bounce and skid along scrub ground as the monologue continued. ‘ _ Megatron  _ had risen… yet again, and he and his army of reanimated Decepticon warriors went on a ten-year-or-so scorched earth rampage while we were merrily rebuilding the future on Cybertron.’

_ Holy fuck,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ Reanimated warriors? Like zombies? Does this terrarium have ores too? _

'Don't think so,' another one said. 'We'll probably find out what's going on soon.'

‘ _ Not _ our finest hour,’ the young Rodimus concluded as Buster and his companion reached another road, this time going through an abandoned town, debris fluttering in the rising wind. It reminded Rodimus of some of the abandoned districts on Cybertron, too brutalized to live in, too fragmented to salvage. For humans, this meant buildings with peeling paint and burnt-out signs.

The humans -- Buster, and his cojunx -- fled through the city’s centre. From nowhere, or so it seemed, appeared three Decepticons, and for all their state of decay, Rodimus recognized them. He saw Ratbat, small and purple, dead-eyed and screeching. He saw an insecticon, likely Inferno, from the shape of her gigantic ant alt-mode. Then there was Thundercracker himself, his optics cracked and cockpit torn out, restless and violated.

“Blast!  _ More  _ zombie-cons…” Buster muttered, and tried to switch gears. Rodimus saw it come too late, the ‘cons were already turning, and Thundercracker fired.  _ Thundercracker, _ that in a different time and place, had saved countless lives and wrote story scripts that were about as terrible as Megatron’s poetry. “...and they’ve seen us!”

Buster hit reverse, and twisted the car around, then shifted gears again, accelerating forward. As he drove, he dug into his pocket, and tossed an object to the female-frame human. “Call him!”

“But… after last time…” the human woman said, looking worried.

“Try!” Buster urged, and headed towards the downtown area, searching for cover.

“Okay, okay,” she murmured, punching in the number as though she had something against phones. The screen displayed ‘Calling… Spike.’ before she put it to her ear, the purring sound of the phone audible even to the observers.

_ I’ve got to learn her name, but I don’t have any information unless someone from this timeline gives it to me,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ Any ideas? _

‘Jessie,’ said one of the Rodimii. ‘Her name is Jessie.’

_ Got it,  _ Rodimus said.  _ I’m going to guess in this version, Spike’s not a member of Skywatch. No military, no super guns that kill Cybertronians, not father who’s a powerful General? _

There was an air of confusion to the Rodimii as one ventured, ‘Spike’s father is a mechanic. Buster doesn’t even like cars.’

_ Wonderful, so why-- _

“Voicemail…” Jessie said, frustrated. The other scene showed that a figure had stirred, but not bothered to rise. Rodimus, for a brief moment, empathized.

“Give it here,” Buster said tersely. “Spike, this is Buster. We need you--  _ urgently!  _ No… we need  _ Fort Max.” _

There was a stir of confusion from many of them. To some, Fortress Maximus was a literal fortress, meant as an Autobot stronghold. To others, Fort Max was a mech, a person in his own right. None of them had insight as to what this might mean, or why it was significant.

_ I feel like we’re missing a huge part of a bigger picture,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ Though there’s something… _

“And yeah, I know what you said,” Buster continued, unaware of his audience. “About you being you and not just some extension of him, but just how bad have things got to get before you make a  _ stand?” _

Above, Thundercracker swooped in in jet mode, filling their vision. Jessie grabbed for the phone. “Buster!”

“I  _ see  _ him!” Buster snapped. “Hang on…” He punched a button and tossed the phone into a cup holder. On the other end, there was a clatter and the faint sounds of tires squealing. Rodimus watched as Spike sat up, digging his fingers into his hair -- blond, not brown, longish in the back and short around the front and sides -- silent, listening.

Buster drove, weaving through the streets, and now Rodimus could see there  _ were  _ people here, huddled in their homes, some venturing onto the streets, all terrified.

“Spike, I’m  _ begging  _ you… put on that blasted  _ helmet  _ and get in the fight.” Buster twisted the wheel, driving into a car wash, stopping and letting the engine turn off. His chest heaved as he spoke. “Before it’s too late. For me… for you… for the world…”

_ Helmet..?  _ Rodimus wondered.  _ It can’t be… no. No, that’s not right. _

‘What is it?” asked another Rodimus. ‘What isn’t?’

_ Headmasters,  _ Rodimus said.  _ Scorpinok’s big plan to take over Earth and the ‘cons alike. Dissecting Cybertronians and putting modified humans in charge of them. Like a drone system but way worse. They did it to Hunter and Sunstreaker. It destroyed both of them, but Sunstreaker survived, sort of. If you can call it that. _

‘Okay, but… isn’t Scorpinok kind of an idiot?’ the same Rodimus asked. ‘I mean, he did just kind of die horribly in lava with Terrorsaur.’

_ Uh, which reality are you from?  _ Rodimus asked.  _ Because it’s totally possible your version was an idiot. And possibly an actual scorpion? _

‘I’m technically from the future, and uh, I’m not really named Hot Rod. My name is actually Cheetor?’

_ Well, you still got invited to Rodimus Club, so enjoy it,  _ Rodimus said.  _ I think we’re coming up on the conclusion of  _ this  _ particular vision. _

Buster reached out to Jessie, grasping at her shoulders, and she returned the gesture, leaning into him and holding onto him tightly. “Look, whatever happens… I love you, okay?” He glanced up, looking through their rear windshield. Ratbat rose, the sky behind him red. Red as human blood, as death. “Goodbye.”

Ratbat fired, and the car exploded, ripping itself, its occupants, and the car wash to pieces. Shock and horror shuddered through the collective in a wave, and Rodimus watched the other scene as Spike stared at the helmet sitting next to his bedside by the phone, tears rolling down his cheeks silently.

‘What the  _ fuck?!’  _ demanded one of the Rodimii, this one sounding like Hot Shot, his old friend. ‘What the fucking fuck, why are we here watching this?’

_ Primus wants us to see it,  _ Rodimus said sharply.  _ Though, if this is the kind of thing Primus does on the regular, I’m beginning to understand why Ratchet is such a grumpy atheist. _

‘So… as bad as this was to witness firsthand,’ the young Rodimus said heavily. ‘Is the sticking point the  _ loss  _ of Buster… or the  _ here  _ and  _ now  _ of Spike?’

‘Jessie, too,’ argued one of the Rodimii. ‘She died too.’

_ Doesn’t answer the question, but if I had to guess, someone just died to motivate Spike’s aft into gear,  _ Rodimus said.  _ It’s disgusting and foul, but it works. You think everything will be okay until you lose someone you care about, someone you love, and you’re all alone, left to pick up the pieces. Reflect on all the ways you fucked it all up. _

‘Experience?’ asked Cheetor. ‘It sounds familiar.’

_ Yeah, Sparkling,  _ Rodimus said.  _ But I call it ‘taking stock’. _

Suddenly, the world spun away, and the collective were thrown to a new time and place, hurtling towards…

‘Woah--’

~ * ~

\--aah-oof!” Rodimus sprawled on the ground, aft over chevron. 

Vision righted itself and Rodimus found himself staring at the same twisted metal trees that had haunted his dreams. As Igneous had said, they were not Groot, and they grew -- if one could call it that -- from a barren wasteland, given shape and form by huge piles of rusted, discarded metal.

‘Erhhn…’ Rodimus muttered as he pushed himself upright, dusting rust flakes from his hands. “For a supposedly incorporeal journey  _ that  _ landing packed a whole lot of harsh reality.’

_ Oh yeah, definitely one of us,  _ Rodimus said.  _ Okay, this might be the distant past… or maybe the far future. Hard to say. I bet if Junkion was a real place, this would be it. _

‘It’s not, though. Robot hell doesn’t exist.’

_ Well, Megatron’s actually been there, supposedly,  _ Rodimus said.  _ Apparently it sucks total exhaust. _

‘Oh, well, if  _ Megatron  _ says something, it must be true, right?’

_ Shut up,  _ Rodimus snapped, surprised by the venom in his own tone.  _ We’re watching. _

Rodimus walked, and his entourage walked with him. “Don’t recognize this place. At all. It’s just…  _ junk…’  _ As he reached out to touch one of the pieces of metal, there was an explosion behind him, off to his right. ‘I’m guessing over there is where the  _ action’s  _ at!”” He turned and began to run, then switched to vehicle mode, speeding along.

The scene’s awareness wavered, and Rodimus watched himself race towards what looked to be a fight between Galvatron… and himself.

‘Woah,’ said Cheetor-Rodimus. ‘That’s us! We’re a Prime!’

‘Some of us are already Primes,’ the multi-wheeled Rodimus pointed out. ‘But this… is different, I think. Who is that? He looks familiar.’

_ Galvatron,  _ Rodimus said.  _ An ancient Cybertronian warlord. He’s killed Primes, supposedly, but mostly he’s just killing time and stepping in to fill in the ‘crazy, world-conquering asshole’ role that the ‘cons have been missing since Megatron declared the cause dead. _

‘Sounds like a blast,’ Hot Shot commented. ‘Our Galvatron was just Megatron with a new coat of paint.’

‘With or without Unicron corruption?’ another Rodimus asked. ‘Because ours--’

Rodimus turned sharply, driving alongside a huge cut in the ground, the junk scattered away from it in a swathe of destruction. ‘Looks of it, something hit here-- hit  _ hard.  _ Some kind of...” As he turned, he could see the cause of the mess: a gold-painted ship, barely larger than the Rodpod, but shaped like one of Rung’s toys, planted in the ground, the side ripped open. ‘Vessel.’

Rodimus transformed back, and moved in closer, running his fingers over the familiar insignia on one half of the ship, while the other half lay a few kilometers back, propped against some of the junk piles. ‘Wow. That… is an Autobot shuttle. But not any make or model  _ I’ve  _ ever seen. Which makes this… the future? Some parallel reality? Both?’

_ Terrarium,  _ Rodimus said.  _ Though, I don’t recognize it either. It  _ could  _ be from the past. Just saying. _

‘We stole a shuttle in the past,’ Cheetor said. ‘Because there wasn’t one in the historical records of it being there. So we had to.’

_ What the scrap even is time travel?  _ Rodimus wondered.  _ I kind of wish Perceptor was here, so he could hear how wrong we are about how it works. _

‘Well, we did almost cause all time to end a couple of times, and then Optimus had to hold onto the Spark of the original Optimus and it made him look really cool, but it also almost killed him.’ Rodimus ‘stared’ at him, along with the others. ‘Let me just tell you, the Beast Wars were wild.’

_ Yeah, I bet,  _ Rodimus said, and watched their guide pick his way through the mess closest to the shuttle.  _ Oh, fuck me Primus. _

There were bodies. Dead Cyberrtonians -- dead  _ familiar  _ Cybertronians. Rodimus felt his Spark clench, and he wondered how many of the collective even knew these mechs. ‘Whatever the case, it’s  _ not  _ anywhere we wound up covered in glory.’ He moved to each one, touching them so Rodimus could. ‘Ultra Magnus… Kup… Springer…’

_ Arcee,  _ Rodimus added.  _ I don’t think I’ve ever seen her look that afraid. _

The sound of metal grinding on metal, and Rodimus started, moving towards the sound. ‘And…  _ me?’  _ Peering around a large pile of junk, their guide came across what they’d seen before, a Rodimus from this future, this time and this place, fighting Galvatron.

_ Are we going to make a speech?  _ Rodimus wondered, watching.  _ We’re totally making a speech. _

“This is for the  _ many  _ poor souls you consigned to oblivion, Galvatron!” Straining, the chains that held the Matrix to his chest scraping the paint, Rodimus picked up his opponent, hurling him into the detritus. “Through the power of the Matrix I have been transfigured.... into Rodimus Prime!”

_ This is why Drift wrote my speeches,  _ Rodimus said ruefully, watching as his alternate self raised one arm, firing the missiles on one arm. It struck Galvatron squarely, knocking him backwards into more garbage.

“But you can call me--” Galvatron smoked, and groaned in pain. “--avenger!”

_ Definitely needs that Drift-touch,  _ Rodimus thought.  _He's really good at it, I think it's that whole Decepticons needing to posture thing combining with the fact he was a quiet and broody loner._

‘Galvatron -- the mystery Decepticon who appeared suddenly on Cybertron.  _ Our  _ Cybertron. And then again on Earth! And… Rodimus Prime?’ he crouched by the junk, using it as cover.

_ He can’t see you, you’re having a vision,  _ Rodimus chided him.  _ So maybe we’re finally putting some pieces together, that Galvatron’s fucking with you and you’re going to throw down with him in the future. We can’t change things, though. There’s a strict hands-off policy involving time fuckery. _

‘Is  _ that  _ what Primus meant? In another time and place… this is my destiny?’

_ It’s hard to say,  _ Rodimus said.  _ You can see with all of us, some of us wound up as Primes, some didn’t. I gave it up, and now the Matrix is gone. I destroyed my half to preserve lives… friends, enemies, people who just deserved better than being murdered by a crazy ex-Justice who wanted to buy his way into Cybertopia with energon. _

In the distance, flying in fast, were a pair of airborne mechs, one blue, the other purple, both familiar.

_ Is that… that’s Scourge… and Cyclonus. Though Scourge is dead, and has been a long time. Cyclonus is on our side now. He’s probably still singing for Tailgate and scaring the patients. _ Rodimus bit at his lower lip plates.  _ This is about to go to slag real fast. _

The Future-Rodimus strode over to Galvatron, reaching out to the other mech, who was flat on his abdomen, still. “If I am to truly light our darkest hour, I  _ cannot  _ allow anger to dictate my decree. Consider yourself… my prisoner. Justice  _ will  _ be served. By due process.”

_ Magnus would be proud,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ I’m glad one of us was smart enough to figure this out, even if it’s not going to matter in about three seconds. _

Their guide looked up, and Rodimus ex-vented hard. ‘What--?’ He reached out, helpless. ‘No! Look out!’

Impossibly, the Future-Rodimus heard him, and turned. ‘Who--? By--”

Laserfire screamed through the air, striking Rodimus from two sides, slagging the Matrix’s chains and sending it flying away, landing near where Rodmus was hiding. He stared, in wonder and in fear.

‘What the fuck?!’ Hot Shot demanded. ‘I thought we couldn’t do anything!’

‘Get it!’ urged another Rodimus. ‘You can take it, it belongs to you!’

‘The Matrix!’ exclaimed their guide. As though guided by fate, the Matrix rolled towards him and he picked it up, cradling it. ‘The pure, focused essence of Primus himself… a fount of creation! Gone in my time. Corrupted. Eradicated. But--’

_ What could I do with an intact Matrix? _ Rodimus wondered.  _ The last time I had it, I came back a hero, of sorts. It washed away so many of the mistakes I’d made, the stupid decisions that hurt people. If I could-- _

“A fine effort, Rodimus Prime,” Galvatron was saying, standing up and pointing his beam cannon at the back of Rodimus’ head. “But like your predecessor, such cloying compassion… shall be the  _ death  _ of you!”

_ Don’t watch,  _ Rodimus warned, and felt the others all turn their attention away as the weapon primed, the high-pitched actinic sound filling the air. Galvatron fired, obliterating his alternate’s head, brain module and all.  _ It’s over. We had a good run, but we got cocky and... well, it's how it usually turns out. _

‘Why did you watch?’ Cheetor asked. ‘You said not to.’

_ It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,  _ Rodimus said shortly.  _ We’ve got other things to worry about, we’ve got to help him through this. _

‘The  _ chill  _ I feel is Spark-deep,’ he explained to the others. ‘But then I start to wonder what I was brought here to see.’

‘There’s always a lesson, isn’t there?’ one of the others asked. ‘A reason to watch everything go to slag.’

In the background. Galvatron waved to Scourge and Cyclonus, the pair coming in to land after transforming, and Rodimus fought back the urge to cry out to him, to demand how he could betray his friends.  _ We weren’t friends to begin with. Not here. _

‘I think this method of learning is the worst,’ Cheetor said. ‘But keep going, it’s like Rodimus said, there’s always a lesson. Some kind of problem with what’s going on.’

‘The problem…’ Rodimus mused, the Matrix glowing in his hands. ‘...or the solution?” Digging through the junk with one hand, he found a length of chain and attached it to the Matrix, fusing the old to the new. He pulled the loop over his head and let the Primal artifact rest over his Spark. The Matrix glowed brightly, and he vented hard.

_ Congratulations… Rodimus Prime. _

~ * ~

Kup struggled under Bludgeon’s weight, scrabbling at the monstrous mech’s leg for purchase. His foe had a sword in his hand, but didn’t use it, instead choosing to press down on his chest. Metal bent and buckled from the effort.

“Stop right there,” said a voice. “That’s enough.” Raising one arm, the challenger -- red and orange and flaming gold -- aimed at Bludgeon.

“Who--?” the other mech demanded, anger and a hint of fear flickering across his fields.

“I’m Rodimus,” Kup’s rescuer declared. “Rodimus Prime!”

_ Looks like our Sparkling’s back in business,  _ Rodimus thought.  _ Do it up. Let’s save the old mech. _

Rodimus fired, blasting Bludgeon away from Kup, and charged forward, yelling. Steel scraped against steel as they fought, blows empowered by the strength of Primus meeting little resistance as the monster Cybertronian fell back and back, losing his sword in a flurry of exchanges.

_ Nice, very nice,  _ Rodimus said. Strength and confidence filled his young alternate’s fields, and even without being able to do anything, Rodimus felt heroic, and warm, burning away some of the old doubt.  _ Now what are you going to do about him? Don’t say ‘bring him to justice’, we don’t want to get shot again. _

‘This is a war world,’ Rodimus replied. ‘I’m going to throw him in it and then blow it the fuck up.’

_ Good job,  _ Rodimus said.  _ Go with your gut, is what I always say. _

‘Heart before head,’ chorused the collective. ‘Every time.’

“Good… good save,” Kup said, engines wheezing. “Help me up. Weren’t you in some vault?”

“Primus sent me where I needed to be,” Rodimus replied. ‘Let’s get to the ship. I’ve got a plan, but it’s going to be messy.”

“Ain’t it always,” Kup said. “Let’s do it up.”

Rodimus grabbed Bludgeon, subduing him with a few more blows before slinging him over one shoulder. The ‘war world’ as he’d called it reminded Rodimus of the Rodpod, in that it was round and shaped vaguely like a face.

His alternate threw Bludgeon inside, and turned to Kup. “Do we have a ship?”

“We have a ship,” Kup reassured him. “We gotta get the rest of the Wreckers, though. We’re going to have to blow this thing up entirely before it hits Iacon.”

“Got it,” Rodimus said. “It’s.... good to see you alive again, and well.”

“Well, thanks,” Kup said, and Rodimus had a brief vision of his still face, twisted in death. “I like being alive too, not sure about the well part.”

“Trust me, you’re better than the  _ last  _ time I saw you,” Rodimus reassured him. “Let’s go.”

Rodimus watched as his alternate rounded up the other Wreckers -- Springer, still alive, and Magnus was apparently still on Cybertron, while Arcee had a different role in this reality -- and herded them onto the ship.

He let someone else pilot while he took the weapons systems, firing at the war world until it exploded. While the others cheered wildly, Rodimus watched, silent and worried, confidence melting from him like ice in summer.

“It’s not over, not by a long shot,” Rodimus murmured, and Kup looked at him sharply.

“What do you mean, Sparkling?” he asked. “ I mean, Prime. Seems pretty cleared up to me.”

“Primus… showed me things,” Rodimus replied, and images flashed through the collective: Jhiaxus, stealing the power of the database for his own gain; Spike Witwicky, staring at the Headmaster control module, being begged to take a stand by his dead brother; the creature, made of darkness; Galvatron, triumphant, standing over his dead body, the last light snuffed out. “There are… fatal flaws in Primus’ designs,” Rodimus said simply. “His grand plan. I fear we have only won a battle in a war without boundaries.”

_ Well, scrap. _

**Author's Note:**

> Cos you're the joke of the neighborhood  
> Why should you care if you're feeling good  
> Take the long way home  
> Take the long way home  
> \- Take The Long Way Home by Supertramp


End file.
